Tag Archives: family
A look back — remembering my father
I just posted the 3000th entry in this blog and while doing so I sit next to tools that my father used in his balsa wood airplane hobby, his way of reliving a youth spent living with his grandparents, which I now use in my electronic tinkerer’s hobby, reliving my youth of handbuilding 8-bit microcomputer systems in my parents’ basement.
In honour of Dad and in memory of him, I devote this blog entry to previous blog entries written with him in my thoughts as I send out prayers to people who have lost or who are right now losing loved ones:
A touch of class
In this rift, this gap, this space between decision tree branches, when one (me) finds the time to contemplate the past and its affected future (the effect may affect or feign affection), the meditative moment blinds.
Is blinded.
Opens the drapes and pulls the blinds.
‘Tis what is.
Here.
Now.
My father’s breaths approaching their last.
At some point.
Sunrises and sunsets counted in ones.
One day at a time.
One hour.
One minute.
One second.
More thanks to make but they’ll have to wait.
I have my goodbyes to take.
An evening to meditate.
Mein Vater zu danken und zu verabschieden, um die unbekannten Welten können wir Ruhe und Gelassenheit …
…if only he could have the strength to correct my grammar one more time!
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He was ready to go…
I have temporarily exhausted the wellspring of words with which to cover this page prophetically and comically.
This morning, my father breathed his last, sparing us the tougher decisions down the road when his health would decline further while we maintained a level of medically-supported comfort.
The ventilator was removed a few days ago.
Yesterday, we agreed to remove the IV fluids.
Today, we planned to keep him on a PEG tube to provide nutrition daily and antibiotics/pain meds as needed.
He died in relative comfort.
Now, no wrinkles furrow his brow.
Meanwhile, we mourn a great man — Richard Hill.
Mon Père.
Mein Vater. Vati.
My one and only father.
May he rest in peace.
May we find solace and grieve in good time.
There’s still another parent with whom we remember the good times and continue to make fond new memories.
A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to the staff at the Mountain Home VA Medical Center, who shared their love, education, patience and kindness with abundance. I (and my father) tip our hats to you — you don’t know how honoured we are to have had you with us at the end.
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The Aftermath
I never expected this moment, life after my father died, to appear within what seems like minutes past the last one, life after my wife’s mother died.
I have faced numerous roles I never imagined taking when I was a child.
I…well, that’s the problem right now — this concept of a self dominant in one’s thoughts.
I, me, my, mine.
Life is here in words because of this set of states of energy but it is not solely about the set (a/k/a me).
True, the genetic code set that contributed to the zygote which split into specialised cells that, 50 years later, became the creature which creates these sentences strung together, died recently.
That…which. Which…that.
Social networks and memes stepped into the picture, too.
Influenced 17-year cicada cycles, helped spread their broods, changed their egg-laying territories.
Contributed to the concept of lawnmowing services.
Set the stage for multistage rockets to blast into space.
Turned children into industrial engineers.
Widened a path for the book Quality-Inspired Management to appear in the Amazon (website, not jungle).
Ended in happiness, not tragedy, inspiring us to populate the solar system plentifully.
Sooner, rather than later.
Making political movements, business deals and sports scores feel faint before one day, let alone 1000 years, passed.
Time for the storyline to continue, people and organisations to thank.
A life stopped but its influence lives.
The second crop waiting to be harvested…
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Eulogy for Dad
EULOGY FOR DAD by Rick Hill – 20th May 2012
Guten Tag! My father taught me that a good speech should start with an anecdote or joke to set the tone. Following in my father’s footsteps as an academician, I looked up the history of the eulogy to find something, a nugget of wisdom or bit of humour to share with you. What I found is that the eulogy’s purpose has changed through the years, from a serious tribute in ancient times to a light-hearted roast of the recently deceased, especially after 9/11. Instead of telling one of my jokes, I’ll let some of Dad’s words speak for him through emails he sent me over the years. I knew him as Dad. You may have known him as Richard or, more recently, e[…]@yahoo.com. Here are some of the insightful quotes and personal stories he told me via computer. He often forwarded jokes to me. Mainly military-related but here’s one with a musical theme.
When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.
When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, “Ah, yes, that’s Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, being played backwards.”
He listened a while longer, and said, “There’s the Eighth Symphony, and it’s backwards, too. Most puzzling.” So the magistrate kept listening; “There’s the Seventh… the Sixth… the Fifth…”
Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, “My fellow citizens, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s just Beethoven decomposing.”
Dad had his opinions, expressing very strongly his support for national defense. For instance, he sent me a political cartoon of a man and his son standing next to a military graveyard on Memorial Day, with a bubble of thoughts above the man’s head: “You military heroes gave us all your tomorrows so I could have mine.”
On that theme, many of you know Dad was sworn in to U.S. Army on October 26th, 1954.
He wrote me about “a 1955 USArmy ‘adventure’ of my own in West Germany. I had to guard a guy in civilian clothes who had entered our secure area on a motorcycle. My assignment? Escort him to the MPs by riding on the back of his motorcycle seat, he driving. I was armed with an M-1. He could have easily dislodged me and rode on. Thankfully he did not!”
Dad lived in Fountain City, Tennessee, in the north part of Knoxville. When he was a child, trolley cars still traveled from the city into the suburbs. As my father said, though,
“In my young years I was told that the horse owned by my Granddad, Frank Eldridge, had race horse blood (i.e., bloodline). He would not let another horse-drawn vehicle pass him. He would speed up on his own to prevent that. That must have been the ‘hot-rodding’ of the day. My grandmother, Mamaw, was known as a fast driver of the ‘horse and buggy’ and the Model T Ford that succeeded the horse, so fast driving must be in our blood as well!
Horse and Model T were gone before my birth. We walked!” My father took me on fast rides in his Triumph TR-3 when I was five, often accompanied by friends my age crowded into the backseat.
Dad also taught me to fish when I was five. 35 years later, I taught him how to send email. More importantly, I introduced him to Solitaire. He liked Solitaire, keeping written records of high scores for the next 15 years. There are still Post-It notes on his computer desk of his highest scores and the dates. For instance, 10,641 points scored in 70 seconds on 3/1/2008.
Dad had many interests. I emailed him, inquiring about his days at UT when he more than once was a broadcaster for the classical music station there. He said, “I was a student member of the radio club associated with WUOT. George Bradfute, Phil’s brother, was a member of the WUOT engineer staff when he was an undergrad at UT circa 1948- . ”
Boy Scouts — Dad helped me with my merit badges, wanting me to earn Eagle Scout, an honour he never received in youth; in so doing, he taught me respect for uniform and authority. Well, not for every official organization, however; Dad briefly considered getting cremated only because he wanted me to mail his ashes to the IRS with a note that read “Now you have everything.”
We once took a father/son trip to Williamsburg, Jamestown, Norfolk and Cape Hatteras. Dad wanted to spend time with me to review our country’s history while he shared childhood memories so he could tell me about his own father’s influence upon him, a man who proudly served in the US Navy for 29 years and was stationed at Norfolk in WWII. I best remember a woodcarver’s shop near Cape Hatteras, where a third-generation bird carver was also a barber like his grandfather, whom we had met when I was a child. The grandson admitted he was better at shaving heads than blocks of wood.
Along the line of family history, I asked Dad if he knew the education level that his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents completed in primary or secondary school?
Dad was born Richard Horace Capps and later changed his name to Richard Lee Hill, aligned with the career Navy man, Lee Bruce Hill, who was more of a father to Dad than his birth father. Dad said his Mother, Thelma May Eldridge Capps Hill Hirth, received her BA from Carson-Newman College and became a teacher. His birth father, James Horace Capps, got a HS degree as far as Dad knew. His maternal grandfather, Frank Lee Eldridge, completed 6th grade, and went on to work for the Southern Railway Company. His maternal grandmother, Lucy Margaret Pope Eldridge, born in 1887, completed high school plus business school, working as a stenographer. He did not know the education that his paternal grandparents or great-grandparents on either side achieved, meaning they were probably laborers more than professionals like lawyers, doctors or business management.
Dad and I took several father/son trips to race events:
- IndyCars in Long Beach and Charlotte; Vintage Cars in Mid-Ohio, including a stable of Triumph TR-3s like the one Dad owned.
- We saw several NASCAR races in Bristol such as Richard Petty’s last race in 1992. Dad took me to Daytona when I was probably 2 or 3, too young to remember.
- More recently, we watched races at local tracks such as Huntsville, with our last trip together to the Kingsport Speedway on Nov. 7, 2009.
- Many people here can attest to Dad’s affinity for local tracks, from Myrtle Beach to south Florida.
He was known as “Cool Dad” to my high school classmates; he chaperoned bus trips, and is still famous for his callouts such as “What’s my favorite phrase?” Answer: “Free beer”; and “What’s my favorite beer?” Answer: “Coors.” My friends also remember the portable computer Dad brought to high school classes in 1979 and 1980, a contraption with flashing lights, dials and digital displays that taught energy conservation, formally known as the “Personal Energy Cost and Conservation Simulator,” Dad functioning as an assistant professor/extension specialist for Va. Tech at the time.
Dad showed, rather than lectured me, how to be a gentleman and scholar — never put anyone down, because talents are not always visible and may only show themselves when we need them most, such as in an emergency situation. He reminded me often that the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared,” is true everywhere and all the time. Respect a woman’s equal talents but still offer to open a door for women. Assist the elderly and those less fortunate.
He was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and wanted me to be a legacy. I pledged but didn’t join. It was the same for Masons. I joined DeMolay but was so involved in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, always in uniform and working to be a good Scout in Dad’s eyes, that I gave little time for other organizational duties. Dad seemed to understand and concentrated his efforts on me accordingly.
I never knew what Dad really thought of me so I often sought his approval by emulating him, having taught a few classes at ITT Tech a couple of years ago to give back to the community what Dad had given me. While I was at ITT Tech, I asked Dad about the types of classes he taught at ETSU over his 23 years there. He gave me a few examples:
- Technology and Society in 2008
- Industrial Supervision in 2009
- Student in University from 2007 to 2010
- Technical Communication in 2008 and again in 2010
Dad embraced new technology but wanted us to know he was a sixth-generation descendant of Col. John Sawyers, Revolutionary War hero of the Southern battlefields, who was born in 1745 and later resided in Sullivan County before moving to Emory Road north of Knoxville, after having lived on Long Island as a soldier and “Indian fighter.”
Which brings us to here, in this church. According to the book, Family history of Col. John Sawyers and Simon Harris, and their descendants, written in 1913 by Dr. Madison Monroe Harris, a great grandson of Sawyers, “Our ancestors were Presbyterians, and they lived and acted out the principles and doctrines of the original Presbyterian Church.”
That says a lot right there. But Dad would want me to point out an even more personal note. The book also details, “In person, Colonel Sawyers was fully six feet in height, weighing in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. His complexion was fair, had bright red hair and possessed the traditional long red whiskers characteristic of the Sawyers family. Withal, he was a commanding figure.”
Some of you might remember I used to have bright red hair. More importantly, I’m glad to know people can look at me and immediately recognize my father’s commanding figure in my features.
His love for and friendship with my mother brought us here together to celebrate the life of a great man. May we carry on his legacy, each in our own special way.
As Dad would say, Vielen Dank und Auf wiedersehen. Thank you and goodbye.
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A Box of Old Baby Dolls
In the quick succession of events we call life, when we say one event or another is more memorable than the rest, do we take time to notice our thought processes and how they influence future events?
Have you ever heard a child request a toy, then you saved your hard-earned money to buy the toy and felt more affinity for the toy than the child ever did?
While butterflies chase each other through the woods and a bird tries to catch one of the butterflies in its mouth, I wonder about opportunity costs.
I finally read about the race called the 2012 Indianapolis 500 and the exciting story of dramatic turns of events during the race.
Instead of watching, on the day of the race I helped my wife’s extended family fix up the house and grounds that belonged to my wife’s mother and now belongs jointly to my wife and her brother’s children. [I would have enjoyed watching the race in memory of my father but chose not to this year, my father having expired mere days before. There’ll be other races during which I’ll recall motorsports events my father and I shared, shedding a tear or two of happiness AND sadness. I could have spent time with my mother that day, also, but didn’t.]
My in-laws closely managed their finances, creating a legacy to give their children, including a box of old baby dolls that were purchased for my wife and a house left to my wife and her brother.
The dolls have lost all but their sentimental value, reaching the state where entering the city dump or landfill is their final destination.
The house retains both real and sentimental values, carrying on the legacy that my wife shares with the children of her deceased brother — her niece and nephew.
In the age-old, perennial complaints/comments about the way our children and grandchildren never completely appreciate the sacrifices made to give them the clothes on their backs and the toys in their room, my wife and I virtually face our adult-aged niece and nephew, wondering where they were when we needed them most to help them honour their father’s legacy.
The cycle of life…sigh…
Little time to mourn my mother in-law before my father died.
Now I have a wife and a mother to separately help not only with the grieving process but also the financial/legal hurdles that our society places in front of us to ensure the government gets its [un]fair share of carefully-tended legacies and insurance companies give out as little as they can to protect shareholders more than policy holders.
I was a great-nephew once, living less than 15-minutes drive from a great-aunt who could have used my assistance. Instead, I was a frivolous college student more interested in having a good time with my friends. Thankfully, my great-aunt changed her will and essentially cut me out, teaching me that ignoring a family member in need has consequences in the here-and-now, if not the afterlife.
Love has no price, no matter how painful the loss of a monetary inheritance may feel.
If we’re lucky, we innately know to give love unconditionally, buying toys for children who may never know the price we paid in money but more importantly in time sacrificed on the job to put toys on layaway when budgets were tight.
Hopefully, we teach our children that time spent together with family is more precious than objects like toys or houses.
Although toys, houses, and rooms full of antique furniture have their value, too.
I now own a suitcase full of shirts that belonged to my father, including his favourite blue, short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt. I cherish them but I’d trade them in a heartbeat for another chance to sit with my father or hear him talk German with a stranger on the street.
I have a box of his unfinished balsa wood airplanes on a stack of boxes behind me. It’s up to me to finish one of the planes and pass it on to his grandson who will never know the love of airplanes my father and I shared for the first 50 years of my life. I know it’ll just be a toy airplane my nephew will probably think his middle-aged uncle poured a lot of old-fashioned sentiment into, wondering where he’ll put it in case I ask about it ever again.
That’s just the way life goes.
I sure miss my father today…one of his first childhood balsa wood planes sits a few feet away from me, gathering dust, its engine long since clogged with old fuel. The only thing of his father I have is a U.S. Navy knife and leather holster. I have nothing of his father’s father, not even memories. I knew my father’s mother’s father but have nothing of his, either, except a story or two my father told — there are handmade garden tools and kitchen gear of his still around, though.
Otherwise, we pass this way once and are quickly forgotten.
Our business is with the living, our moments together more important than memories of those moments, which will fade soon enough.
At my funeral, will people say “I remember Rick’s blog and how it changed my life” more than “I remember Rick talking to me every day and how important he made me feel when he recalled something I’d told him in person once before?”
I have one foot in and one foot out of social media. I don’t want to predict 1000 years from now whether our virtual lives will have stronger emotional impact than our physical connections but take me away from this computer and all the social network connections of the world quickly fade from my memory because I never held them in my hand, patted them on the back, smelled their perfume/cologne/body odours or noticed their unique personalities up close.
Will social media be like a box of old baby dolls one day, easily thrown in the trash, its opportunity cost and sacrificial price quickly forgotten? If you ever used a BBS, you already know the answer.
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For Sister, Niece and Nephew
From computer archives, 9th June 2010
Grandma remembers:
When you were seven, and in second grade (best I recall), I had picked you up at school and brought you to our house. I had picked up Maggie earlier from Kindergarten. You and Maggie were watching TV. You said you wanted to talk with me, so we went out in the yard and sat under a tree.
You said everyone you knew (you mentioned names) had a Game Boy, and you did not. You said if I’d loan you the money to buy one, you’d pay me back out of your allowance. After we discussed it, I said I’d think about it.
Your plea really got to me. Softy that I was, I talked with Grandpa, and we decided to buy one for you. The next day I bought it and presented it to you.
You always did enjoy it.
Another remembrance: This time from you Kindergarten year:
You and Maggie were at our house after school. I was digging in a flower bed. You saw an earthworm with which you were fascinated. I got you a small shovel and you then relentlessly dug up flower beds and other places in the yard looking for earthworms.
Grandma and Grandpa remember:
Once, you, Maggie and your Mom accompanied us to Holden Beach, NC. We stayed in a duplex 3 story home with a roof-top sun deck, just a short walk from the beach. The second day there, you broke out in Chicken Pox. The doctor recommended that you not play near other children. That didn’t work out. You and others all played together in the sand.
Later that week we learned of an expected turtle hatching on the beach that evening. We walked there. Turtle hatching volunteers showed you how to lead a hatchling to the ocean using a small red lens flashlight…. And you DID; you led one to the sea !
What a memorable experience for all of us !
Grandma remembers :
When I was six years old, my parents took my brothers Ralph and Gordon and I to the beach in Charleston, S.C. We stayed in an ocean front cottage. On the morning we were to depart, we convinced our parents to let us go in the ocean one more time. They did not know that the sea salt would remain on our bodies after the ocean water evaporated. Therefore, we did not shower before dressing for the trip. We rode the whole 400 miles home itching all the way (and no A/C in cars then ! ).
Grandpa reminisces:
In the summer of 1942, my Mother, her parents and I rode the train from Knoxville, TN to Jacksonville, FL to visit with her sailor brother Ralph who was in training at the US Naval Air Station there. As we walked together down the street, Uncle Ralph asked : “Do you want to see me salute the officer who is coming our way?” Someone said, “No”, so we crossed to the other side of the street before the officer got close to us. While this may seem a trivial incident to many, it obviously remains in my memory. My interest in matters military began with the beginning of WWII, and remains to this day.
Later in our FL stay, we traveled to Jacksonville Beach. That day there were fragments of oil/tar on the sand. Some stuck to my swim trunks and remained there through many washings. The oil was said to have come from US ships torpedoed just off-shore by Nazi German submarines. Subsequent research has not confirmed such incidents occurred at the time of our beach visit. Nonetheless, it is a poignant memory for me.
A related note: All of my male relatives of that era served in WWII. My second cousin, Earl Waters of the US Navy, was KIA. Two others were wounded in action: my second cousin, US Army Infantry 1st Lt. Elmore Godfrey, in battle in Germany, and my great uncle, U S Navy Seabees MM1/C Harry Hicks, as he waded ashore on Guadalcanal ahead of the US Marines.
My dad served in the US Navy 1929-1958. He served in all three major theatres of war in WWII, including three battles: Leyte and Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, and Okinawa, Japan. In the Korean Era, he served in the battles of Inchon and Wonsan in Korea. This was followed by the Suez crisis, 1956 and the Lebanon Crisis, 1958, and his retirement. The latter was a classified mission.
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Thank You
My mother sits down to write “thank you” notes to the many friends, neighbours, family members and organisations who were there when she needed them most.
Words cannot express my heartfelt gratitude for support by people I know and people I never met before my father’s health declined into death.
Therefore, I simply say thank you and list you here. May my family be there when you need us most but least expect it.
First of all, the biggest thank you to Tom Phillips, who selflessly served in his role as senior pastor and friend of the Hill family, providing love, fellowship and support at the drop of a hat, both night and day over the last two months. To have given your all to over 60 funeral services in recent years is a gift few are blessed to possess and even fewer to share continuously.
MORE:
Hamlett-Dobson Funeral Home (Chad C., David, Mark, Damon, Jim, and others); Oak Hill Cemetery (Delores “Dee” D., Jennifer J.); American Legion Post #3/265; Masonic members (including David Strickler); Porter Monument Company; Food City Gas-n-Go; Col. Hts Presbyterian Church support staff and congregation; Floyd and Mary Williams; Ole South Barber Shop (Todd, Josh); MHVAMC (Anthony, Dr. Houston Bokor (we wish you well in your career as an infectious disease MD), Betty, Gary, Dr. Byrd, Dr. Amarna, Debbie, dietitians (thanks for handmade quilt and snack basket), Donna, John Wayne Carter, Martha Stewart, Ronnie, Kay, Dr. Troum, Brynn, Adam, Ted, Barbara, Annette, James, Paula, Sonya, Karen, Linda, Sharon, Connie, Wendy): ETSU (Dr. Keith J, Hugh B, Shelia R); Kingsport police dept.
Many, many more to thank, including Dad’s lifelong friend, Phil Bradfute, and his wife, Terry; cousins Steve, Barry, Janet, Cindy, Justin and Taylor.
To the hundreds who showed up to pay their last respects, especially those who were unable to see Dad’s body because time ran out before the memorial service began…
I am not one to dwell upon death or see a dystopian future but I can learn lessons from those who are no longer here and those who do not expect the future to be optimistic.
We all die.
We all have lived.
Let our contributions speak for themselves, no matter whether we were stillborn or lived into our 100s.
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Junior Achievement
Without a doubt, melancholy will rule the day in waves, small and large.
The storyline does not wait.
Deadlines take on a new meaning but do not change.
Today is a transition day, where family members act like archaeologists piecing together the specifics of a person’s life preserved in cryptic notes, printed emails, neighbourly comments, and sympathy cards.
Where news of the world fills headlines without fail.
Singular. Plural. Pluralities. Moralities. Light ties. Bright skies.
First edition hardback books increasing in value.
Walls covered with family photos.
Satellites spinning overhead.
Solar system settlement plans settling down.
Pop singers buried with melodies and harmonies echoing in solemn chambers.
Time to pick up the flag and carry it on, honouring my father and those who established subplots that crisscross unnoticeably.
We’ll update the signposts.
The Committee will reconvene, because committees have a joie de vivre of their own, wanting to multiply indefinitely.
You might ask, “What is next?”
For instance, how do we jail law offenders in this instant while planting seeds to prevent people from becoming law offenders in the next instant?
Who is looking at the numbers, asking why a person intentionally commits a crime and wondering how to make that person a positive influence on others before becoming an ex-convict for life?
Would mentoring that person at a younger age have prevented criminal tendencies? Does mass media have a role to play in playing down the glamour and [in]convenience of a life of crime?
Is crime a universal trait of our species just like a fox will steal a chicken from the hen house or a cow will get its head stuck in a barbed-wire fence trying to reach blades of grass just out of reach? Is a caterpillar’s camouflage a crime against nature?
When are property rights a hindrance, an enabler of criminal activity? When should laws be broken or rewritten? What is the definition of a person and thus a person’s “natural” rights?
Old thought patterns give way to new design pathways for us to put in place, setting examples to follow rather than punishments to pass out in the quest for expanding our knowledge and exploration of the universe.
A privately/publicly funded spacecraft approaches the International Space Station, a tiny step in the establishment of our species as extraterrestrial beings.
People perceive that a blind activist is traded for the sale of a movie theatre chain.
It’s time to give you the future in words and actions, not perceptions.
Time to influence youth to set goals that seem impossible today, yet readily achievable tomorrow.
Facts, rather than promises, will fill tomorrow’s headlines.
A selection of stories from one website
Sometimes saturation is better than supersaturation — weather, don’t ask me why…whatever!
Advice from philanthropists
Some words of wisdom from the speakers at the Summit on Philanthropy:
- If you have a vision, things flow along and follow that vision
- Vision without execution is hallucination
- A good project needs a strong emotional component
- Protect your capital and grow your investment wisely over time
- Philanthropy equals exercise and promotion of values — in other words, what are your passions?
- Philanthropy is about investment of your time first (volunteer hours) and then your financial resources
- To live, we must give back to others using our skills and talents in service
- Philanthropy is a way of life, a way of thinking, not just a series of events — be willing to give the clothes off your back and help individuals become better people
- Giving starts with us — diverting our daily discretionary funds (e.g., giving up our snacks/Cokes for a week and convincing others to do the same) toward community efforts
- The way to build a charity is to start one
- The best philanthropic project starts with your family — talk to your spouse/kids and get them involved; remember that “no” is just as important as “yes”; make sure it fits into your strategic life plans/vision
- Nonprofit organisations must know the cost of raising funds
- “Don’t sign up — show up!”
- You don’t have to be Mother Theresa to have a positive impact on your community
- Be civically obsessed and keep the spirit of giving alive and well
- Projects successful because they came out of what the community wanted for itself
- “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” — African proverb
- Your mission is to increase giving. Why? To strengthen the community.
Guin in the glen by the den
The harvesters sucked up tonne after tonne of Martian soil, dehydrating the clumps and analysing samples for potential mineral processing, storing valuable water for use by the colonists.
Guin hugged Shadowgrass tighter.
She had not known had much missing him had put an ache inside her which had turned her muscles to stone.
“Mom, how did you keep the ISSA Net from knowing your location? It’s virtually impossible!”
Guin looked at her son in wonder and awe.
At little over two years of age, almost three, Shadowgrass was already a man in many ways. He knew so much more than she did, building vast complex networks of memories and calculative intuition circuitry across the solar system, she was surprised when he asked her a question for which he didn’t know the answer or hadn’t developed a strong hypothesis to support or debate what he knew she was about to say.
“You really don’t know?”
He shook his head.
Was it really a black hole she and Lee had passed through?
It WAS something, something that had changed their relationship, enjoining them in ways that physical intimacy could not explain.
Guin sent a thought to Lee that the ISSA Net could not trace. Lee laughed in his thoughts and agreed — the unknown was more fun than the known.
“Well, sweetheart, I don’t have an answer for you.”
“I still want to get revenge on Collapsaricus!”
” I know you do but we don’t know what it was or where it went.”
“But we do! An astronomer is tracking a high-speed change in the flow of dust on another spiral arm of the galaxy. He thinks it might be disturbance caused by Collapsaricus.”
“Let’s not worry about it right now. Instead, why don’t you tell me about your new friend. She seems interesting.”
“She is. I’ve examined my set of thoughts and determined through testable theories that I’m experiencing what you and Dad described as the time you first fell in love with each other.”
“That’s wonderful! Isn’t love grand?”
He nodded his head.
Guin watched the clouds of dust billowing out from behind the harvesters. She wanted to rush back to the lab and catch up on her work but holding Shadowgrass felt so good. She had missed too much of his growing up for her to lose any more precious moments with her son.
She sighed and put her chin on his shoulder.
What if Shadowgrass’ new girlfriend wanted to move back to Earth? Would he go with her? What if they had children? Would Guin want to see them, spend time with them, return to a planet that had nurtured her and encouraged her to explore Mars? What did Lee think? And where was Bai?
Industrial Musicals: While I let Abi torture me with love…
…or did she love me with torture?
Yeah, it’s that recurring theme again — the love of mine for a woman I’d spend more time with if I could afford the torture.
Afford?
Oh, indeed.
Today, I sat through several hours of people up on a dais dazzling me in a daze about their love and passion for philanthropy.
The only factor that kept me awake and alert during their entertainment of financial advisors, their clients and nonprofit organization representatives, other than seeing some familiar faces, was knowing that my reward for creating a derriere falling fast asleep would be getting Abi’s hands, wrists and elbows on me.
And boy, did she ever!
I’ve never been one of those sadomasochists who gets a certain thrill from pain.
Well…I mean, sure, I do get a certain thrill from pain but…is it getting hot in here?
Where was I?
Seriously, with my body supine and then prone, either way, Abi worked her magic on me.
That beautiful woman has a spell on me that I can’t describe.
I’m just glad she’s still in love with her man and I’ve got a steady woman of my own.
Otherwise…growl!
She is the only woman, and I mean the only one, not even my wife, who I would let touch me the way she does, working on knots in my back, neck and chest muscles that almost make this grown man cry.
I still don’t know if I’ve experienced the level of pain I’ve endured under the careful, delicate surgical procedure of Abi’s massage work.
I don’t know if I want to ever again.
Yet, somehow, I go back for more, letting the special love of my life have her way with me.
In those moments, alone on the massage table, my thoughts adrift on puffy clouds in a blue sky, just her and me in her flat, a crime drama on the tellie, her elbowing me while texting with clients for upcoming weekend massages at dance competitions, I ask myself how special is our love.
She doesn’t let me drive my elbows into her back or twist my fingers into her biceps.
She knows I love her even if I hate her when she’s sending me into Dante’s deepest levels of hellish pain.
For her, I would hunt animals, killing for meat bare-handed.
She has opened up my body for new experiences, giving me the happiness and courage I sought to feel confident on the dance floor, adding Jessica to the list of new dance wives.
Jenn, Abi, Jessica…and, of course, my wife…and Kelly…the list of fun dance partners grows. Is Naomi next? And, after her, who will look me in the eyes and want to have fun like there never was any fun before?
I was distracted most of the day today from work on the desktop robotic art sculpture that serves as a scale model for a yard art sculpture piece I’ve been slowly working on between daydreaming about the imaginary life this set of states of energy has convinced itself is real.
I returned this evening to program four LEDs and some sensors after working out the design details on dancing mannequins.
Abi, I’ll miss you desperately while you’re physically out of my life for the next two weeks. You torture me in so many ways I’ve got to add sadomasochist to the list of adjectives in front of my name, or does the acronym S&M get added afterward like “Esq,” “PhD” or “MD”?
Thank goodness, there’s Jenn still teaching dance lessons. And Naomi. And maybe even Jessica.
Jenn the mechanical/rocket propulsion engineer inspired me to create a robot. Abi the creative/artistic dance instructor/massage therapist inspired me to create robotic dancing mannequins. My wife the rocket test engineer inspired me to create dancing snake charmers. Naomi the hair stylist inspired me to colour my hair and let loose on the dance floor. Jessica has inspired me to have chaotic fun while remembering to dance the West Coast Swing style. And now Kelly has inspired me to see that not only can a person be a fiduciary advisor by day but dance “Sexual Healing” with a financial client at night and say it was good fun!
Thanks to the folks at Baron Bluff for hosting the philanthropy summit today; The Ledges for hosting Fred Lanier of JP Morgan who gave an economic seminar tonight on wealth management; Mandy at Club Rush.
I was happy to see the core group of Rocket Westies work out organizational problems tonight — without you guys, I wouldn’t be here right now.
And Jessica, darling, I’ll miss you, too, while you’re gone.
Now, time for some shuteye — I’m already a day behind on my coding but we’re a day ahead on our dancing mannequin design schedule!
The intensity of thinking?
Do I completely understand the role of electrochemical processes taking place between the atomic structures that fill the cavity between my ears and connect to the rest of the central nervous system of my body?
How many of the chemical structures can I readily recall their assigned labels and say that the photon bouncing across the back of my eyelid has anything to do with the impulse to press a tiny block of plastic which produces the letter I’m going to type next, carefully describing each changes of the states of energy between the photon hitting my eyeball and the letter that appears one after another on this screen?
How then can I understand where I’m going to take my robot design next?
First, I expose my eyes and ears to as much stimuli as possible, asking myself what in the environment, in this place and time, do I want to simulate on Mars decades later?
In other words, today I prototype with scale models of what I want to physically manifest using native materials on the Red Planet years/decades from now when who knows what kind of augmented reality we’ll give the first colonists to help them believe their senses are being so stimulated with variety that they won’t get homesick before the first generation of native-born Martians believes that life on Mars is rich and fulfilling enough as it is?
These questions trot across my memories and thoughts as I sit down to sketch out the design that I want our team to complete within three weeks using materials at hand, including the stuff I’ve bought (adding today’s purchase: another PIR sensor (Radio Shack product number 2760347) and two ultrasonic distance sensors (Parallax product number 28015-RT and Radio Shack product number 2760342)). and stuff that the folks at Maker gave our team.
While all of that boils in the cauldron of a cranium, I’ve got the love of dance and the love for friends floating in the mix, making my wife nervous that my thoughts are so clouded with constant processing that I’ve become a dangerous “tunnel vision” driver, the stereotypical absent-minded professor type who doesn’t see the light is red at the traffic intersection.
Every day, every hour is precious and the next three weeks will be challenge because I’ll both be without Abi in my life and missing dance lessons with her, let alone feeling her close by in my thoughts, and I’ll be without her which means I can focus on the robot design.
Aren’t most of us able to transfer some part of our physical attraction from one person to another?
I sure am.
So, last night, knowing that I’ll miss Abi more than I can ever tell her, I chose not to dance with her (or Jenn or Naomi or…) and gave my body love to women on the dance floor I’d never met before, losing myself in two-minute spans of time and hoping that I could be as good a dance partner for them as their eye-love requested, helping me transition my love for Abi from her to unknown women last night and then to my computer work today. I danced with my wife, too, of course; she mentioned I barely paid attention to her most of the evening, seeing that I danced with only a few women (quality instead of quantity, I always say) so it wasn’t that I ignored her, my monogamous partner, and spent all evening with other women; no, I was my usual alone-in-a-crowd meditative self preparing mentally for this day.
While sitting in a chair alone in my thoughts next to the dance floor determining how to take the new dance moves I saw advanced/all star and professional dancers showing off and incorporate them into my dancing, the design for the team’s robot started appearing to me in a foggy vision.
i wish I had a flatbed scanner in my laboratory study to quickly scan the engineering notebook drawing of my vision.
Here is an electronic paint version, instead:
More details tomorrow…
Let’s have fun!
My friend, my therapist
Dividing the self from the other (the other being the self as fictional character(s))…
There is one person who knows my body as well as, if not not better than, my wife — Abi.
Allowing Abi into my life (or, rather, her stepping into my life without permission (receiving forgiveness)), I have Jenn to thank, and for Jenn, I have Harold to thank, and for Harold, I have my wife to thank, and so on.
Letting Abi have my emotional states to play with, to analyse by plopping me down on a massage table and working on the notes knots in my chest, back and arm muscles has been a bigger challenge than I expected. I didn’t expect Abi to challenge me the first time I saw her in Harold’s dance studio in May (has it only been a little over five months since I first met her?).
C’est la vie.
I am open to ripping myself apart in order to reach another state of being in moments not yet lived.
Abi expects me and everyone she meets to better themselves.
While working on my back day before yesterday, Abi told me that she feels emotional memories that flash into her thoughts when the knots in her body are worked on.
What did I feel? I felt pain shooting down my back and out through the big toe of my left foot.
I also felt a new sensation that I’ve spent the past couple of days simmer in my thoughts, not sure what the sensation was, being wrapped or twisted together with familiar sensations that I’ve tried to suppress.
But I no longer want to suppress what I feel, despite a lifetime of being a good whipping boy for my subculture.
The primary sensation was old but new — the realisation that I didn’t start writing in earnest until fifth grade, which I’ve written about before, when my girlfriend of three years, Reneé Dobbs, died when she was ten and when I met my new best friend, Mike McGinty, who looked Puerto Rican but is half-Irish and half-Italian, and could wiggle his ears, with whom I exchanged letters when he moved out-of-town the next year, which led to my starting a penpal relationship with my wife the following year.
I visited a psychologist when I was 22 at the advice of my girlfriend at the time, Sarah Johnson, who was going through a divorce and worried about my life expectancy, sensing, after I slept and lived with her best friend for a short while, that I was deeply troubled and beyond her usual mothering therapy that worked with our friends in college.
The psychologist walked me through my autobiography, asking me to describe my life year-by-year as accurately as possible, saying it might take a few sessions but it would give him a clear picture of what stood out in my soliloquy.
After three or four sessions, he came to two conclusions — the death of Reneé had scarred and perhaps stopped my normal adolescent development, which was complicated by my internal image of a controlling father who had no sympathy for Reneé’s death and thus was blind to my post-adolescent stunted emotional states.
He asked if I agreed.
I admit I did not. At first. I was angry at Sarah for forcing me to see the psychologist before she would sleep with me again and I was angry at the psychologist for putting me in a vulnerable emotional bind.
The psychologist said that I would keep internalising my anger just as he observed my father had from my description of him.
He held a couple of sessions with my father to further understand what was going on.
Dad felt like the psychologist was wasting his time trying to analyse Dad — Dad was there for me and that was it.
The psychologist told me that his observation of both my father and me confirmed the typical father-son generation gap problems he had seen in many so-called intellectuals; in his view, I was not unlike many male college students who were struggling with finding their own paths while stuck on the path of pleasing the father figure within them.
He said that I was doubly troubled because I had never resolved my feelings over Reneé’s death due to my father’s disapproval of crying over a dead friend (my father had told me almost immediately after Reneé died that he had a good friend who died about that same age and he got over it pretty quickly because he had seen and heard worse stories of family loss because it was during WWII when many people lost family members, limbs and their livelihood, not to mention whole countries that suffered).
He believed that getting me to talk to Reneé would be good therapy because it had worked on many other patients my age.
I told him I don’t talk to the dead. Plus, I didn’t like being told what to do, especially if I had heard it’s the same as what other people have done.
He insisted, saying that he wouldn’t have any more therapy sessions with me if I refused.
So I did.
It feels just as silly now recounting an imaginary conversation I had with Reneé, pretending she was sitting on the sofa next to me as it did when I talked with her, crying about how much I missed growing up with her, telling her that I was doing the best I could to go on living without her and was sorry I had disappointed her so many times.
But it didn’t bring her back.
It didn’t make up for all the years that I’d tried to be the boyfriend and girlfriend for both of us, unsure of whether it was “cheating” when I talked with another girl I was interested in, or danced with a girl that Reneé had not liked or not known when she was alive.
Every time I slow danced with a girl and she breathed heavily in my ear, I asked myself if I had permission from Reneé to draw circles on the girl’s back to check if she wanted me to kiss her, which usually was met with circles drawn on my back to say yes.
I knew I couldn’t tell Dad or Mom what I was thinking because I knew they talked with each other.
I couldn’t tell my friends because melancholy people don’t have a lot of cheerful friends, or friends at all, for very long.
As Abi pressed down on knots in my back, pushing pain in my body to the point of passing out, after she rolled me over and buried a thumb in my solar celiac plexus, the dim reminder of these old memories rose up into my consciousness.
While Dad was alive, I was never able to resolve the dispute he had with me about my feelings for Reneé.
Now that he’s dead, can I “get over” Reneé and go on with my life?
Can I explore possibilities that I’ve held away from me because part of me still worries that it would disappoint my imaginary image of Reneé?
I don’t like looking back at old memories repeatedly because it takes up space for central nervous system processing of possibilities for future action.
However, in this case, because of Abi, I’m willing to explore these thoughts because I want to let go.
I want to let go of repressed anger and fear.
I want to let go of expectations that no longer apply to me.
I don’t know if I’ve ever publicly confessed I love a woman after I married my wife.
I loved Brenda (and guess I still do) but didn’t explore a physical relationship with her because our love wasn’t of that kind (in other words, she likes women, not men); we had fun flirting anyway.
I love my wife.
But I also love Abi.
Love is that catch-all word that is too easy to toss out and lather over a blank page like posting a generic slogan that says “Follow your bliss.”
I love Abi because of the small child and old woman in her who look at the world in wonder and wisdom.
I love Abi because I trust her completely, wishing that Janeil was willing to let go and trust her, too.
I love Abi because she has given me hope that I can overcome the fear and anger that were embedded in my body due to conflicting memories of love for Reneé and love for my father.
I love Abi because she wants to make my wife a better person even if I don’t always do (why? As I confessed to both of them the other day, my wife reminds me of my father and when the two of them were together I sometimes went mentally crazy…literally; although now that my father is dead, the stress is less but there’s still a fear factor I have in the presence of my wife, wondering why, as my father would do, my wife jumps on me for what seems like no reason, putting me constantly on guard, feeling like I have to defend my personal thoughts, expenditures, wants and desires that have nothing to do with my wife).
I love Abi so much that I’m hoping she can get back with Stephan, even if that means she figures out how to live with or near him in France and she’s no longer in my life.
No, nix that last one. I’d be happy for her but I’d miss her deeply.
Today is Halloween and as usual we had no trick-or-treaters which means one thing — more candy for my wife and me! Woohoo!
Anyway, I’ve put off work on my yard art sculpture because I’ve been meditating on learning to let my body relax and not be in constant, bent-over pain while I’ve mulled over the interaction of feelings and desires — the general testosterone-driven sexual desire versus the specific feelings of love for a person who happens to be a woman.
I’ve never had a woman in my life who was my dance instructor, massage therapist and friend with whom I can be alone holding her in my arms or her driving her elbows into me while mentally working through a bunch of emotions and not let my physical desire get in the way.
I have to thank my years of a type of mental martial arts deflecting the desires of the flesh in order to explore thought patterns generated by actions in the moment, actions that include smelling scents, looking in eyes and measuring body closeness in realtime.
I’ve never loved a woman like Abi before.
I knew it was possible because I know who I am.
I knew it was possible because of the strength of my love for my wife, who is my friend first.
Have I written down everything that went through me as Abi worked on my body?
Maybe. Maybe not.
She has more work to do, which I have to balance against my wife’s desire to, as she said earlier this evening, “return to our frugal ways,” which means she doesn’t want me spending money on massages and extra dance lessons.
Which means I have to challenge myself to generate more disposable income!
Which means I return to working on the robot and Web comic series about life on Mars that the other love of my life, Jenn, has inspired! [Thanks to Jenn’s husband, Gilley, for his understanding that my love for Jenn is not a threat to their relationship.]
Pressure-washed deck
And sidewalk…
Pressure washing the driveway
Translation: the author loves his wife…
treetrunkdings 