On Death and Dying

I've been thinking about death and dying a lot lately, especially as seen through they the eyes of J.P., 7, and Joe, 3.

I wanted to organize my thoughts, so I could write a cogent post on the subject.  I don't think I'm there yet.

Tonight, when I got home with takeout food from Martin's Barbecue after J.P.'s baseball game, I could tell he was down.  I was a bit surprised, since he played well in the game and was fine when we left in separate cars a little while earlier.  When I asked him if anything was wrong, he started crying and said "I miss Great."  (J.P.'s Great Grandmother, Rita White, died on August 6, 2015).  He allowed me to pick him up, which is rare these days, and he laid his head on my shoulder and cried.  Joe sat in the floor behind us. playing Candyland, oblivious to what was going on.

I held J.P. and talked quietly to him while Jude bustled about the kitchen.  I told him part of having faith - and part of the reason why we were in church almost every Sunday - was that we believe that Great is in heaven.  She's with her husband, Jim, whom she missed dearly after he died.  And she's not sick and she's very, very happy.  I also told him she watched over him (and us) every day and that she was proud of him.

I believe that.  I have to and I really do.

At dinner when we eat at the table in the dining room, we always say a prayer before dinner.  It's the same prayer, kind of a "White family tradition."  Sometimes - actually most of the time lately, anyway - Joe adds his own prayer at the end.  He prays for Grandpa's back and legs to feel better, for Meemaw's back to feel better and for Great's head and back to feel better.  He blissfully ignorant when it comes to death, which is how it should be at age 3.

When Joe and I go to Bongo Java most mornings before I take him to Children's House, he sometimes looks for Fudgecake (the cat that inhabited the Bongo Java grounds and the establishments on Belmont Boulevard on both sides of Bongo Java for the past decade).  Fudgecake died recently, not too long after Great passed away, and I just haven't had the heart to tell Joe or, especially, J.P.  Lately, Joe is asking about Fudgecake less and less, which somehow makes me feel even worse about his death.

To top things off and because bad things always seem to come in threes, I stopped in our neighborhood Kroger a couple of weeks ago and while I was in line, asked about our friend, Eddie, who has been a fixture in that store since we moved here in 2002.  The cashier and the bagger looked at each other, then at me, and told me that Eddie was sick - cancer - and would not be coming back to work.  Eddie has been so great to J.P. and Joe over the years on their many, many trips to Kroger.  The boys adore him.  Shit, I adore him.

And now he's dying.

I told Jude about it and the boys made him a card and dropped it off at the service desk at Kroger.  I hope he got the card and I hope he remembers who the boys are and, most importantly, that he had a really impact on their lives.  His kindness and friendliness toward them was a small thing, but it was a  huge thing, too.  I haven't had the heart to tell them that Eddie is terminally ill and that he's not coming back to work.

Unlike Jude, I am kind of an expert at losing people you love - people to whom you're close - when you're very young.  The loss of my father when I was 5 or 6 (strange that I don't know exactly how old I was) marked me for life in ways seen and unseen.  I know that.  I also lost my grandfather, Robert Ussery, and my mom's sister, Ann Miles, while I was in elementary school.  That's heavy stuff for a young boy to go through.

I think - no, I know - that when you're young, like J.P., and someone you loves dies, you experience a profound loss of innocence.  That's what makes me the most sad, for him.  He's 7 years old and much like me at that age, he realizes that nothing lasts forever and that people die.  People he loves will die and there's nothing he can do about it.  Again, heavy stuff for a 7 year old.  He realizes, I think, on some level that nothing lasts forever and that life is impermanent and fleeting.  He probably couldn't verbalize that notion, but I think it's what he feels.  And I think it's why he started crying tonight and on a few occasions recently, thinking about Great and how much he misses her.

I wish there was some way I could shield him from that reality, some way I could protect him from the loss of innocence.  But there's not.      

The Return of the King(s)

It's Monday morning, Labor Day, and I'm enjoying the relative quietude at Bongo Java.  Jude and the boys are on their annual sojourn to Neptune Beach, Fl, to visit the Baines family.  I'm reflecting, just a bit, before I go the airport to pick them up in a couple of hours.

While I enjoyed the down time, I'm ready for them to get home.  A few moments ago, J.P. called as they were about to board the airplane for the return flight to Nashville.  "Dad," he said.  "When we get home, can we throw the baseball or go to the gym for a workout?"  Music to my ears.  "Of course," I responded.  One of the advantages, I think, of raising boys who aren't tethered to a screen (television, iPad, iPhone) is that want to "do" things instead of just "watching" things.  I want my boys to be participants in life, not merely observers.

Probably the highlight of my weekend, strangely enough, was finally finding the time to read Wright Thompson's wonderful, insightful long form piece on New Orleans ten years after Hurricane Katrina. Yesterday, after going to the office and working for most of the day, I sat in a quiet corner of the bar at Edley's, had a couple of beers (Oskar Blues Pinner Throwback IPA's) and read the entire article.  Amazing work and a perfect example of why Wright Thompson is one of the best writers working today.

The link to the story is here:  http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/13479768/wright-thompson-life-loss-renewal-new-orleans-10-years-hurricane-katrina.

Yesterday morning, I ran 7 + miles on the trails at Shelby Bottoms.  I've been getting out there more lately, which has been nice.  Finally, I'm getting into a rhythm, I think, and finding some balance between work/family/running.  Getting up early, well before 6 a.m., and running has made a big difference.  It's funny, but running five days last week and getting 20 miles in is a big accomplishment when, a few years ago, that was my routine.

During my trail run, I listened to a fantastic "This American Life" podcast, "9 + 10."  Ira Glass and crew took a walking tour of the Lower Ninth Ward, ten years after Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it wrought.  By the end of the podcast, I was in tears as I listened to a recording of the reunion of two friends who hadn't seen each other in the decade since the flooding that followed the hurricane.  It was beautiful radio.

The link to the podcast is here:  http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/565/lower-9-10.

All right, enough reflection.  It's time to stop by the house and head to the airport.  I want to hug my boys.

 

No Ordinary Joe

I'm sitting at Bongo Java, listening to a Trampled By Turtles playlist on Spotify, wondering how I got here.

In approximately 20 minutes, Jude will drop Joe off at Children's House for his first day of school.  And so it ends.  And so it begins.

Gone is the age of true innocence for Joe, when most of his days involved Carley, Maghan, Grandma and Grandpa and whatever it was that he wanted to do next.  Play in the sandbox, go for a walk, listen to Thomas the Train music, go the playground, call Jonny Love, go outside (at our Elliott Avenue house), take an nap, have some milk or snack or, more recently, play games (Candyland, Guess Who, War, Hullabuloo, etc.).  In essence, the world revolved around Joe, or so it seemed to him, anyway, at least during the day when J.P. was at school.

That all changes today.  While I love - and I mean LOVE - Children's House and all it provided for J.P. and will provide for Joe, I'm still sad that Joe has reached the end of a long line of seemingly endless days of living life in the safety of his own home are at an end.  The flip side, of course, is that starting this morning, the world is going to open up for him in a landscape of endless possibilities.  I take comfort in that, but still, I can't shake the nagging feeling that something will be lost this morning when he walks through the doors of the school.

I wonder what Joe will think - what he will feel - when Jude drops him off 15 minutes from now.  I have no idea, obviously, of the thoughts he's capable of forming or the emotions he's capable of feeling, beyond happiness, excitement, sadness, anger, fright, etc.  The basics.  I don't know how nuanced his ability to think and feel actually is at 3 1/2 years of age.

I do know, however, Joe is an extraordinary young boy.  He's so verbal, intelligent, funny, stubborn, shy at times, strong willed and athletic.  When he smiles and laughs - which is often - he literally lights up the room.  He has a vivid imagination.  He seems to have an inner sense of self confidence, although it's hard to put my finger on why I feel that way.  He loves sports, especially baseball.  I guess that's natural, since he's accompanied J.P. to virtually every practice or game he's had since the day he was born.

After today, Joe's life will be irrevocably changed.  Sure, he's gone a couple of days a week to play school at West End United Methodist Church the past year, but Children's House is different.  It's more structured.  There are rules.  There will be learning.  There will be lots of playground time.  And there will be lots of others children, his age and older (4 and 5).  He will be around the teachers and children in Classroom B almost every day for the next two years.  His world will expand to include Children's House and that will become a vital part of his life and development.  And I know that's a good thing.

(As an aside, I have to mention that "Alone" by Trampled by Turtles is playing right now.  That has always been Joe's favorite "Turtles" song, by far.  We have a video of him singing along to that song, in my truck, a couple of  years ago as we left Gentry Farm on a glorious fall Saturday).

He's ready, I think.  I'm waiting on the call from Jude any minute now, so she can give me a full report on how Joe did at the dropoff.  Will he cry?  Will he not want to get out of the car?  Or will he hop right out and walk inside on his own, not looking back, like J.P. did four years ago?  I was the one that cried that day, actually.

God blessed me with a second son when I least expected it.  And now, today, I'm blessed again as Joe takes an important step in his life's walk to wherever it is that he's going.  It's an honor and a privilege to be along of the ride.