Traditions

Traditions, are the jagged rocks
waves of life crash their survivors against.

With no mercy,
the giant events
loom on the horizon.

Rendezvous with landmarks, the memories.
Energized, suppressed emotions.
Rudderless we rise and fall,
collision inevitable.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year, excuse me?

Andy Williams lived in a dream world in 1964. How is this the most wonderful time of the year?

I'm all in favor of a week of slowing down and spiritual reflection. Instead we have Christmas... or the Holiday Season. Neither slow or spiritual. But I don't have to participate. Detachment.

Peace on Earth. Violence in our actions.

Christmas, when all your wishes come true. What was Bing Crosby wishing for in 1939? Bing lived in Andy's world. I never knew Christmas could be so painful. I grew up in Andy's Christmas Special world.

I might go to church on Christmas Eve. The church I grew up in. The church we attended with Aaron and Patrick at Christmas Past. My heart will break.

I'll Be Home For Christmas, if only in my dreams

We cleared a spot for the Christmas tree last week. The spot is unfilled. Cathy decorated a little. Most of the boxes of magic are too hard to open. The hand carved Santa we bought for our first Christmas in this house 16 years ago stands at the fireplace. His string of bells is missing. He appears to be waiting for something.

My brain's sending stray voltage ideas lately. I've caught myself turning toward the telephone to call Aaron. "Oh, I should tell Aar......ohh." Orphaned electrons fire and I think "When will Aaron come ho....?..ohh." I don't have a grasp on reality. Maybe this is where acceptance is crossing paths with denial.

Aaron's been in my dreams almost nightly. We had a swimming race and played on the same football team. Aaron and Patrick were back together being brothers. Just being brothers. Aaron and Cathy left PT and me for someplace. I'm sure they had fun.

Christmas number three without Aaron is actually the fourth in five years. In '03 Aaron was in his first month at MBA. I guess we've had a long time without a family Christmas. I'm not getting used to it.

Christmas Letters and The Writer Strike

Supposedly writers are on strike in Hollywood. I suspect they just took a break to write Christmas letters.

This is a beautiful time of year. I'm grateful to still be on the Christmas letter lists of a few people. Desperate Housewives, Smallville, Heroes, Brothers and Sisters, Somebody's Anatomy, they're all there in the mail box. Amazing children. Talented athletes. Why doesn't anybody write about the kid who got an F? "Bobby had a subpar year adjusting to seventh grade. Except for Gym, Bobby had all F's on his report card. We'll use the his interest in kickball to build on the Incomplete."

If I didn't have a child of my own, I couldn't fully comprehend the disturbing news parents around the country receive from orthodontists. "Our little princess got braces this year. The orthodontist says she will need to wear them for 18 months. This has totally ruined her life." How does one recover from that? Avoid the orthodontist. Is it possible that braces are a status symbol or are children ingesting something hazardous to their teeth? In 1972 only children of doctors and lawyers had teeth bad enough to require braces.

On a typical hospital show people survive burst arteries, heart transplants with a butter knife and a Bic pen, operations to seperate cojoined body parts, and your average missle impalement. Watching these miracles in high definition on a 42 inch screen of millions of tiny mirrors, makes it hard for me to muster up any empathy for letter writer's plantar warts, braces, caps, acne rashes, exotic fish stings, vacation sunburns, weight gains, intestinal blockage, bum knees... I'm emotionally drained from Keeping Up With the Kardashians. If that sex tape gets back on the internet, God knows what will happen to Kim's budding career and gargantuan ass.

Drama Drama. But few dramas compare to the sadness and depresion caused by a child leaving for college. Unless this child is going to the Universtiy of Heaven, the College of War in Afghanistan, or Iraq, there is a road, a plane, or a train running to the campus community. Telephones and internet allow immediate communications. I'm not a fan of the show "My Kid Went to College and I'm Sad." Where's the remote?

Why do we write Christmas letters? And who created the boiler plate? (Job. Travel. Aches and Pains/Bodily Functions. Kid accomplishments. My possessions.People who pissed me off.) I wish I would have kept all the letters we've received in the last 25 years. What I think we would see is this: The little angels, geniuses, and super athletes would grow up to be average folks. (But their offspring would be the second coming of Christ) The aches and pains would be overcome, or not. Overbites would be corrected without lingering long term mental health trouble. Amazing jobs would be left and new amazing jobs secured. College, like Kindergarten and high school, would be adjusted to and finished, if not completed.

If writers had an editor in the family the letter might be reduced to:

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth. Goodwill to All. But what kind of message would that be?

In The Presence of Angels Nineteen Years Ago

Lambeau Field, December 11, 1988. Tim Kritter and I had a once in a lifetime opportunity handed to us by a Jenny Schienle---Two sideline passes to a Packer Game at Lambeau Field. The catch, pick up highlight film from a Green Bay TV station and deliver it to Madison in time for a 10:35 PM post game show. Jenny and her sister Jill had handled this chore all season and the cold weather, not the Packer's 2 wins and 12 losses, broke their spirit for one more mission. Two decades later I still can't believe we had such a gift. The photos are our proof that the dream was real.

Yesterday Cathy discovered the long misplaced photos. They were safe and sound in the bottom of a chest of photos and keepsakes. While watching the 2007 version of the Green Bay Packers, I flipped through the two dozen pictures. What I noticed in one picture didn't shock me. I felt the brush of angel wings on my neck.

John Blaha is the House Mentor at The Aaron House. I met John in January 2005. I took a seat next to him and noticed a huge diamond filled Green Bay Packer Super Bowl XXXI ring on his finger. "Who is this guy?" I wondered. Definitely a fan, possibly an office worker, certainly not a player. He wouldn't pass for even a kicker. The opportunity to ask about the ring didn't present itself until several weeks later. Before I knew the story Aaron was home and his path crossed with John's. Aaron noticed the diamond G and we pondered what the story might be. Aaron never spoke to John, but he did see him. I eventually asked about the ring

From 1976 through 1996, John was a volunteer, assistant equipment manager with the Green Bay Packers. Folding towels, cleaning lockers, and retrieving the kick-off tee were some of John's chores. He had an inside view of the Green Bay Packers from the lowest days of their history to the top of the football world. John has a more impressive background outside of his "service work" for the Packers. His career made John the perfect person for the House Mentor position. We are blessed to have his gentle spirit leading the student-residents.

On December 11, 1988, John was on the sidelines at Lambeau Field. Wearing a Packer stocking cap, a Packer jacket, green pants, and white shoes, John walked in to the view finder behind Tim Kritter just as I snapped the picture to commemorate our dream come true. Tim is a great friend to me, to our family, to Aaron, and a special supporter of the Aaron House project. Here we were in the most unlikely of places, two decades ago, for an instant just feet apart. Today we are connected through Aaron's life sharing our insights to make The Aaron House work for some people who, like Aaron, were little boys in 1988.

God connects people in fascinating ways. You never know when you are in the presence of angels.

Changing Conditions

If we did not feel there was something wrong, we would do nothing to change our condition.

Suffering, writes Thomas Merton in Opening The Bible, is an incentive to change. The change needed, he asserts, is to unify with God. Get our affairs in order. Become centered. Get out of selfishness, and be be our true self. The problem we have as humans is that we try to avoid suffering, or we try to get rid of suffering. We maintain our ego, and division from God and our true self.

At the time of my greatest suffering, I felt closest to God and furthest from the entrapments of life. I rejected the false life and felt true suffering. In suffering I struggled and clung to some spiritual understandings and searched for more. What mattered most had nothing to do with life of labor and mindless entertainment. I wanted only to rest in the sunlight, feel the breeze, dig in the dirt, be with nature, and cry.

What if I had just kept busy? What if I had distracted my mind, avoided suffering or "got rid of suffering" with medication, self prescribed or professionally? Where would I be today? What if I knew the answers to those questions? I faced the fire and walked in. I know where I stand today and it is preferred to where I might have ended had I run.

Last night in a dream a yellow taxi cab pulled into our driveway. The garage door opened. We all shouted, "It's Aaron! He's home!" We ran to the door, the garage door continued to open. The taxi pulled in. All we could see of Aaron in the back seat were his legs dressed in brown courdoroy pants. I woke up with tears in my eyes.

As I slip back into the world of living I may be losing some of my suffering. At the same time I am noticing the balancing between disbelief that Aaron could be gone and astonishment that I once had another living son. His photographs are appearing slightly foreign to me. I'm beginning to see an image out of place. I'm becoming used to seeing Cathy, Patrick, and Tom. The fourth person in the old pictures takes up a lot of space. He's out of place. I can't hear his voice.

The conditions are changing. I've been avoiding suffering. Keeping busy is to stack up unattended sorrows.

December 2, 2003 -- So Far Away

So much turbulence, heartache, hope, travel, work, promise. I remember how hopeless I felt in the late fall '03. My son had lost me as a dad and I had lost him as a son. It was that bad. Maybe I didn't have hope at 4:20 AM on that Tuesday morning on December 2, 2003. The off duty deputies had arrived to escort Aaron to MBA in Prineville, OR. I showed them to where Aaron was sleeping. I can still see him curled up in a blanket. Aaron later told me he was more passed out than asleep. When Aaron was gone, I may have still been hopeless, but I was confident he was in a safe place, in the hands of people who were experienced. Cathy was broken. Patrick was scared. I slept better. The house was incredibly quiet.

Four years have passed since that day. Was it right to send Aaron away? I don't give time to that question anymore. At the time it was an option more favorable than others. In the spring of 2005, I was grateful for all that the MBA experience had done for Aaron. He was home. He had some wonderful skills, an outlook to admire, and a plan that made sense. If I have regrets today about sending Aaron so far away for so long, it's because he's not here today to love and share the moment. I won't contemplate what those 13 months would have wrought had Aaron not been in a safe place with people who were capable.

I would like to have those 13 months back. I'd like to have all of the years back. This month the Aaron House has a student-resident graduating from the UW. His parents must have some sense of peace. I'm grateful for not turning sorrow into anger and resentment. I can appreciate Aaron's House because I'm not trying to rewrite the past. Looking at the past is OK, but I'm not going to live there.