When life ends

Twenty six years in Madison and 160 miles of road between here and home. How many times have I driven that stretch to Antigo and why is the road always under construction? I wonder if the reason the highway is six lanes is so two can always be closed?

In Aaron's life we probably drove to and from Antgo 100 times. The family conversations, and questions about things they saw along the way leave landmark memories for the entire trip. The travel is a bitter sweet memorial journey. How many times do you think I had glanced in the rear view mirror to see their smiling, pouting, crying, laughing, sleeping faces? A gadzillion or two. Rear view mirrors are made for holding the faces of kids. Their emptiness tells a sad story the way the unused chair at a table whispers "I'm gone".

Accept it. No. How can everything be so much the same everywhere? Photographs and memories burn and I just insulate my heart to make the trip. My jaw aches from clenching. My head hurts from remembering. There is no comfort in traveling the gauntlet.

A radio talk program featured a conversation on death. According to the voices, at the time of death we relive our entire life in an instant. All of the places, all of the people, all of the smells, and feelings are experienced one more time to let us know where we will be in God's heaven. Oh, geeze, one more time with purpose! When life ends, will that then please be the last time I relive all of the memories? When life ends.

His Life is Not a Game

Six years ago this summer I caught Aaron smoking marijuana. A 16 year old would have some experience with the drug before being bold, or careless, enough to light up with dad a few steps away. The proof I didn't want to find verified a suspicion. Through the smoke I faced Aaron confused. Five months later the drug had consumed Aaron and family. Choices were made, decisions were implemented. We live with outcomes for the better or worse. I'd rather not judge the decisions and choose to try to live with the results.

Today I spent some time at the location where that six year old day ended. So much has changed. I thought I never wanted to get back on that road of life which carries us away from the days of sorrow and heartache. Life appears to be a spiral instead of lineal. If hard work returns anything I expect my mind to be sharp and wise with the experience of life's brutal lessons. I'd like to not repeat the mistakes of my past.

I dream of saying the right thing, responding with wisdom to situations which should no longer baffle me. Keep dreaming. Sometimes I feel that the hard work was just hard. Did the work just smart and not give smarts?

Driving home my mind was reviewing opportunities to be more than I was; opportunities I fumbled. A United Way billboard caught my attention from a half-mile away. His Life is Not a Game. The prayer handed to me on that deadly day 5/10/05 spoke again: God let me hear the words you need me to hear-- A young person's life is not a game. My sons never need me to be their coach. They always need me to be a Dad. Other young men don't need me to be more than humble and respectful in and out of their presence. Saying the perfect answer every time is a goal I will never meet. Failure to meet unatainable expectations is certain. I wanted to be the perfect dad and certainly suffered the consequences of that expectation. A version of that mistake doesn't deserve a second look at the light of my days.

Russian Gulag

Tomorrow You Go Home by Tig Hague, Gotham Books. 2008.

You don't find books. Books find you. The story of this British banker who lands in Moscow in July 2003 on a simple business trip and ends up in a merciless Russian prison nudged my attention as I walked past it in the library last week. The red jacket with black stripes looked right and the spacing of the sentences felt good as flipped the pages. "A twenty first century Midnight Express" described the story in the inside flap. A young man arrested in Moscow for carrying a tiny amount of hash in his jeans pocket. The year 2003 has meaning to me in that it was the last year of life as I once knew it. Still I picked up another new book and spent an hour reading its story about Sirhan Sirhan and the assassination of Robert Kennedy. In the end I put back the book I selected and checked out the book that found me. For a week I read.

Tonight I finished Mr. Tig Haque's true story. What happened in his story is not why I came to the office tonight to write my thoughts. When it happened moved me. July 17, 2003 was possibly the exact date when I discovered Aaron had taken on pot smoking. Tracking the story almost perfectly, Aaron was in full crisis within 3 months, the same time it took for Mr. Hague to go from problem to full blown crisis in his situation.

The story continues with Hague being sentenced to 3 plus years in a horrific prison in the frozen Russian wasteland. He landed there about the same time Aaron arrived at Mount Bachelor Academy. As Tig Hague wasted away and suffered in misery, Aaron was rebuilding his sense of well being. Hague's family mourned, and we found hope. While Hague nearly died, Aaron was given new life. Finally in April 2005, Hague was released from prison and reunited with his family. About the same time, early May, Aaron died.

The tracking of the two stories, one ends in happiness, the other is sorrow didn't jump out at me until I read the Afterward. "...flew back to London in the spring of 2005." One nearly dies and finally lives, the other nearly lives and finally dies. While one family rejoices, another mourns.

The sun shines on the joyous and mournful at the same moment. The paradox of life.