Tag Archives: family

June 11, 2023 · 12:21 pm

A Tweet about a Death Goes Viral

My mom passed away at home as dad held her hand on June 9. Just four days from her 69th birthday. She battled cancer for five months, but we didn’t know it was cancer until April. My wife and I made a quick trip home in April. I wrote a tweet to share with my Twitter friends that my mom was sick and that my engagement on Twitter would be erratic.

Over the last few months I gave quick updates for my friends and colleagues of my mom’s journey.

My wife and I again headed home on June 3 because my mom was in the hospital. Again, I sent a quick update for those who know me. I also recorded my poetry lesson for Move Me Poetry on the way home. I was scheduled to provide the lesson for Tuesday. My mom was released on Sunday, things were looking good. So we headed home on Monday.

My dad texted me Friday morning (June 9) that she had passed. I called my brother, called my two sons, and broke down sharing the news with my four daughters that afternoon.  Then I tweeted the news on Twitter.

Why am I sharing this? Because something powerful happened.

As I am writing this blog, that tweet has been seen 15,684 times. It has been retweeted, liked, and commented on thousands of times. What happened? Why did this simple tweet make its way to so many people and why did they care enough to interact with me? I have some thoughts…

First, and the most important thing, is that some aspects of life connect us on an important level. Grief, heartbreak, but also joy and love are emotions and moments we all share. The stories are different, but at some point we have to deal with the loss of someone important to us. We all grieve, yes in our own way because of the uniqueness of our stories, but we feel that loss.

Some of the interactions with my tweet were of the stories of people losing their mothers, some just as recent as mine and others were years ago but they still missed their mom.

I tried (and I think I did) to respond in some way to everyone that left a comment or an emoticon for me. There were some small but powerful conversations because of sharing the pain of the moment. 

For a few days, I have connected with strangers because we shared a common moment, understood a powerful emotion. For others, they simply wanted me (a stranger to them) to know that they understood and cared.

That’s a powerful thing. I wonder what this world would be like if we could do this in the real world, on an everyday basis.

The second aspect isn’t about the tweet, but the stories, including mine and my family’s.

I mentioned that people did share their stories, as best they could in the space Twitter gives us. And life is not that simple, and neither is death.

As a dad I broke the news to my children. The three oldest took it the hardest because they have had their grandparents involved in their lives for over 19 years. Summer vacation, Thanksgiving trips, graduations and other big moments.

My youngest three have had their grandparents in their lives too, but that relationship has been different and less interactions. (We now spend Thanksgiving at our own home instead of traveling.) I realized that they all had their own story with their grandma.

My dad lost his wife. He held her hand as she passed, married over 40 years. 

She was one person, who played so many parts in different life stories… her death is just as complex. As is our lives.

My wife has said a number of times that life never lets you handle just one thing. It doesn’t. As my mom’s health declined, my oldest daughter was graduating and we had college orientations. My youngest had art camp the week of my mom’s death. We moved our oldest son to his new town as he starts his first year teaching, then moved my wife’s parents into assisted living and then headed home to see my mom the first week of June.

Life will not allow us to handle just one thing at a time, it is a complex mix of joys and heartaches. Stress and good music. Eating on the road and tweeting to friends. But it is also, just sitting, holding the hand of your mother, trying to give her all the love you were going to share with her in the future.

At the end of the tweet, which is now at 15,753 views, I wrote that we should say “I Love You” more, laugh more, and that life is a gift.

I hope that message goes viral for everyone today, and each day they are given to experience this life. 

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March 19, 2023 · 12:56 pm

Blueberry Muffins and a Question Mark

This post is a cliche´.

You have heard songs about it, read other articles or blog posts about it, heck, you might have an inspirational poster about it. About not taking today for granted.

But sometimes life gives each of us dots to reinforce ideas. And life has been giving me a ton of dots to connect lately, even as I sit down to write this post, the first song to play on my “Writing” playlist was “Numbered Days” by Eels, not kidding. (The song will be at the end of this post for you to enjoy.)

Earlier this week my mom had a sudden medical emergency. She is doing well, back home. We are still waiting to understand the reason for the situation, but things are good now. but a moment like that sets your mind racing with so many “what if” questions. Some are based in the moment, while other questions center on the future. Every minute becomes a question mark.

Honestly, tomorrow is a question mark. Really, the next minute of my life is a question mark. Life can change in a second. Life can turn 90 degrees with a decision and be off in a new direction.

We all know this, we all have experienced these moments that for a while challenge us to be more grateful for our family and friends. To make that decision to go after a dream we put away for tomorrow. I do it, too. Then life falls into a routine.

This morning we had blueberry muffins for breakfast. There was scrambled eggs and sausage. We talked about the college basketball upsets. If you are a regular reader you know this is what we do on most Sundays. This is a routine, and I share this because there are great moments in the routine of our lives. These types of moments give us joy and love, even if my girls hate my energy in the morning; they know I love them when I call them “Sunshine Bears” when I see them in morning.

But there is a depth to our lives we let go of when we live as a routine. When we waste time just going through the motions, or sit and just watch other people live life on social media. Yes, today is a gift. I was getting into the car after track practice on Friday. The sky was a mess, a small rain storm was approaching from the north, but the south sky was blue and filled with little white fluffy clouds that were shifting their shapes with the wind. I was hit with a deep thought…

I have never seen the same cloud shape ever in my life, and I never will. Think about that for a moment.

Yes, I will see the same kind of skies, but each cloud is a unique aspect of the moment. The wind changes the edges of the clouds, like it does for us if we pay attention to how life is giving us this moment to breathe, to love, to feel the edges of ourselves, stark and sharp, against time.

Life may be hard right now for you. You may be experiencing the greatest moment ever right now. I don’t know because we all have our own time in this life. It is a gift, to be opened and to be lived. Tomorrow is a question mark, but right now should be an exclamation mark!

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February 21, 2023 · 7:50 am

An Open Letter to My Daughter

A few days ago we were talking about karma, about why it seemed that people who do bad things always seem to win. To be popular. Last night you opened up about the friendship situation. I connected the dots.

Junior high is a minefield. It is hard to judge what the next step will bring. Add the state of our society, social media, and the challenge of just being a teenager, and it feels like the world is in chaos.

There is nothing I can do or say that will change the outside world. I hope that maybe this open letter can help you navigate the next couple of years and help you discover the beautiful soul that you are.

First, friendship is one of the foundations of who we are. But it is also fickle and can actually be destructive. Our friendships make or break us. Even after all these years, and our own rough spots, my best friend is an important part of my life. But many of the other friends I’ve had over the years are not a part of my everyday life. Right now, it feels like you should have a huge group of friends. I understand the need to feel “liked” by everyone. To be honest, even adults have that desire, but real friendship is a serious relationship. And it is hard sifting through the fake and real relationships in junior high, let alone the rest of your life.

Real friendship is earned. If you find yourself asking for friendship, that person is not a friend. Let them go. Know that honest friendship builds you up, supports you. You should never have to ask to be loved. This is a hard truth, but it’s true.

Second, guard your heart, but never close it. This is hard to write as a father because I want this world to be a beautiful place for you. But there is so much pain and hurt in this world caused by people who want to do bad things. Oh how I wish this wasn’t so because there is such beauty and joy to experience in this life. We have experienced it! But our hearts are the most important aspect of who we are. Our hearts are strong, yet can be damaged with a single word or action… and that damage is hard to heal. I know, even now I deal with the pain everyday from the wounds people inflicted on me.

Guard your heart, just don’t close it.

Third, mom and I are always here. Home is our sanctuary. If you simply need a hug, find me. I love you.

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February 5, 2023 · 3:59 pm

Dilly Bars and Snowball Fights

Today the snow was perfect for making snowballs. After my walk I took on two of my daughters in a snowball fight. We used the piles of snow on each side of the driveway as our defense. I lost. In my defense, I didn’t have gloves, so I had to take breaks to warm my hands.

Afterwards we ate Dilly Bars. We stood among the shattered pieces of snowballs on the driveway, soaking in the sun and just talking. 

In the midst of this crazy time we are living in, we enjoyed a Sunday afternoon.  For those who are regular readers of this blog, you know my word for this year is “Moment”.  This afternoon was a great moment. It was a moment of living, of fun, of family.

I don’t know if it is because of my word, or just me getting older, but I notice that what too many people call living is just enduring life, or simply being entertained by a screen. Even in the simplest moments, there is a depth of joy to be experienced that you can’t get from a screen.

The snow is perfect for a snowball fight today.  And Dilly Bars can be held with frozen fingers.

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January 3, 2023 · 10:41 pm

The Story of Objects

I’ve been thinking about a small anecdote from Joy Harjo’s book Poet Warrior: A Memoir. She shares the importance of getting a cooking pot when her mother died. It was a pot that had been handed down for generations. It was the only thing she wanted.

OK, I’m going to come back to the cooking pot.

I could not find the original, but as I read Joy Harjo’s book I was reminded of an article that discussed how the digital age was eliminating natural artifacts of our lives. Love letters, books, old jackets, and other things future generations might find that would build a connection to us through those artifacts.

Back to the cooking pot. (I’m going to paraphrase because I have returned the book to the library.) The reason Joy wanted the cooking pot was for the stories in the pot. From having full bodied stews, to just water and maybe some carrots. How it held a flower and how each mother, for generations, had the pot in their hands. The pot was an artifact for Joy to stay connected with her family tree.

In her book, she explained how objects hold stories.

Artifacts tell stories.

But what objects do we have in our lives? What objects have we transferred our lives into? Or is everything just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s… stored in a rectangle that we replace every two years because we cracked the screen or we just want the newest color?

How many photos are stored in the cloud? When was the last time you looked at them?

I love my phone. I use technology everyday. But what am I leaving for my children? What will future generations know of me? 

This post is not about getting rid of technology, but a call to action to create real artifacts for your family. Pass on the stories of your life through letters, through pictures, through whatever artifacts that are intertwined with your day. They will tell the story of you, even after you and I are gone.

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January 1, 2023 · 11:38 am

A Blueberry Muffin, a Podcast, and a Word Walk into a New Year

January 1, 2023. 

A Sunday. 

That means we had blueberry muffins for breakfast today. We also had scrambled eggs and sausage patties. An addition we added years ago, but the tradition’s foundation hasn’t changed. And that is important as thousands of New Year’s resolutions are being made today, and thousands of them will be broken during the year. 

On Tuesday, the next episode of The Creative Moment will be published. We talked about goals and resolutions. As we talked I had a thought that I shared during our conversation. That we are OK letting ourselves down. We will work harder at not letting others down than we do with our own personal goals. That is crazy to think about, yet thousands of resolutions will not last even the first month of this year.

Small Canvas and easel.

Later tonight we will be setting our word for the year. This will be the ninth year of this tradition. This year we are using small canvases to create an artistic expression of the word. We also have a small easel to hold the artwork. My word this year is Moment. The idea is based on being fully in the moment this year. Not to be on my phone, not to be worried about things until I need to be, to feel the ups and downs of every day.

The base of the idea does come from one of my favorite books, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and I have blogged about some of the ideas expressed in the book before (“I took out the trash today”). Maybe it is the fact that I feel time is running faster, but I want to be fully in the moments of my life, not to let myself down in 2023. That’s not a tradition I want to set…

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October 17, 2022 · 9:34 am

Miles to Muffins

For the first time in a while, everyone was around the table for breakfast on Sunday morning. There was only one blueberry muffin left, the eggs and bacon were all gone. And the morning was filled with conversation.

These moments are becoming rare, and I know that next year that having everyone home will be even less frequent. This is what bittersweet feels like. It is a mix of joy, reconnecting, laughter, pride, and knowledge of time running out, that scares me, to be honest.

Even though my word was Miles for this year (and I have traveled some miles this year), I sat thinking about how many miles my children have traveled this year. Especially my three older ones. 

One of the things I am most proud of in this life is building a home. It has not been easy at times. But home is the center of our life as a family. Like a wheel, the house is the hub. My children are spokes. Their lives will take them away from the house, but the love we share keeps us connected; the rim that allows us to travel through this life. 

As we started to put dishes away, I joked that the kitchen was going to be quiet once everyone was out of the house. My oldest son said, “You still got a long way to go,” as he looked at his youngest sister (age 9). I smiled at him because I knew deep down that I would be a dad for all of them, no matter how many miles they travel to come back home for blueberry muffins.

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July 29, 2022 · 8:18 pm

Miles to Home

As many of you know, my word for this year is MILES, and I have fulfilled that word. Roughly, I have traveled 5,000 miles so far this year. I have traveled for sports, college visits, and a small family vacation. What is interesting about all my travels is how I’ve learned more about the idea of HOME.

Home is a house. A building that I start and finish my day at. A building that protects me and the family from storms. A place where we gather to eat dinner and to play Mario Kart. A place where we rest our heads and our feet. This house becomes a home because of the stories we share at the table, the protection we get from the emotional storms in our lives, and the laughter we share as dad comes in last again.

But home is not just this house. Home is our history. I went home this summer to visit my parents. It was just me, a few days to be their son and to walk down memory lane. One night we walked to the letter hill and found that my name, football number, and hand prints were still set in the concrete D on the hill by the high school. 

My name and number.

For a few days I was simply their son. We talked about life, family, and recalled funny and emotional stories. The house was basically the same and so was the sense of home, especially the routine of gathering in the kitchen to talk. It was always the place we would gather before we went off on adventures (maybe someday I’ll share how we had to heat up the oil pan in the car with a waffle iron one winter).

Home is a routine. My wife and I make blueberry muffins every Sunday. Growing up we had bacon and eggs almost every Sunday. Home is the traditions we create. When I traveled with my daughter to Atlanta, it was funny how we still followed some of our normal routines, like eating at a certain time.

But what I’ve really come to realize is that home is actually the people we love and have a strong relationship with. One of the best things about the trip home was how easy it felt to talk and be with people that I hadn’t seen in years. It was like being home with them. I sat with my high school guidance counselor on her back step and just talked. Yes, we caught up on life, but there was no awkwardness to bridge because of the years. That is home.

If for some reason we had to move from this house, we would still have our home. You would find us eating dinner (at 6 p.m.) sharing stories at the dinner table. We would be home no matter where we were in this world.

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May 16, 2022 · 12:12 pm

Why Blueberry Muffins

Traditions.

Why have traditions? 

I received a thoughtful answer from the PBS show, Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. The episode was “I Am Rukmini Devi” which shared the story of how Rukmini Devi brought back the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam. Part of the overall story was the importance of traditions, and at one point Rukmini Devi states that traditions are part of a family’s story.

I had never thought of it exactly that way, but it is true. A tradition is not just something you do on a regular basis, it helps tell the story of you. The story of those you share the tradition with. Making blueberry muffins every Sunday has given us milestones to remember our past and to celebrate the present moment. Almost every child has helped make breakfast on Sunday morning, lately my third daughter has cooked the scrambled eggs. I didn’t supervise her this past Sunday. These are small moments but they highlight the change our family goes through as we live life. 

We have stories to tell because of our Sunday morning tradition of blueberry muffins, those stories bond us together. And as my children get older, especially the boys as they are starting their adult lives, they will start their own traditions but will always know the story of our family because of blueberry muffins. I am thankful for that.

Traditions.

Why have them?

It’s one way to tell your story…

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February 6, 2022 · 3:46 pm

Small Moments

When I go grocery shopping on Saturdays, I tell a dad joke to a certain cashier if he is working. He is not there every Saturday, but if I see him working, I make sure to tell him a joke. Some are better than others, but it is always a fun moment to share a joke with him. 

There is a gentleman at church I make sure I wave hello to when I see him and again when we share the sign of peace with those around us. I don’t know his name, I don’t think he knows mine. He is always alone.  We both smile as we acknowledge each other. Even if he is in another section, we wave to each other. There is a jolt of happiness in the moment.

Every morning (during the week) I make sure everyone’s water bottle is filled with ice and water. I place the bottles in backpacks, or leave them on the island for the person to grab before heading to school.

For whatever reason, the small moments have been on my mind lately. Actually the power of small moments… Everyday is filled with small moments, some lasting no more than a minute. Talking with the barista while ordering a coffee, holding a door for someone, singing a song in the car with my daughters (No, we do not talk about Bruno). What matters is what kind of energy we bring to the moment.

I am sure everyone has had the situation in a store or at a restaurant where the employee was in a bad mood and made the moment awkward or even negative. Or someone is on your tail driving, trying to get you to go over the speed limit. That kind of interaction can be tough to overcome, it sets a sour taste for the day, or at least for a while. Now, I know that customers can bring the same kind of negativity at a store. I have lost my cool in traffic. Anybody can bring negative energy to a moment.

Or we can be positive. 

If you think about how many small moments there are in a single day, you can understand why it is important to handle each moment as an opportunity to bring a little happiness to the people involved. It is like dropping change into a jar. A couple of pennies doesn’t seem like much, but if you are depositing change 20 times a day, it adds up quickly. 

A small moment can change everything for a person, be it negative or positive. This world needs more positive moments, even small ones.

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