Life Lessons From My Father

What is the most valuable lesson your father taught you?

1. You can put garbage in a closet, but that doesn’t stop it from stinking

2. There are more horse’s asses in the world than there are horses

3. Everything happens for a reason

4. You can work with the devil himself, if it’s to your benefit.(Advice about bad bosses)

5. There’s good and bad in all kinds

6. Those whom you hold a grudge against, own you.

7. It’s a waste of time to try to argue with willful ignorance.

8. Stupid people are always ignorant, but ignorant people aren’t always stupid.

A Thoughtful Gesture

Yesterday, a regular reader of my blog, John Sherck, contacted me on IM to wish me a happy birthday.

We chatted for awhile about various things and he eventually commented about my blog entry that day. I'd said that I wished I could stop by the cemetery and leaves flowers on my mother's grave on Mother's Day. As he lives in the same city where my parents are buried, he offered to take a trip down there and leave some flowers on the grave for me. He added that he'd take some photos, so that I could have a "virtual visit to the cemetery".

I gave him directions to where the grave was located in this large cemetery, where the first graves date from the 17th century, hoping for the best. Before he signed off, he promised me he'd email me later about what had transpired, and said he'd send photos if he'd found the grave.

Hours later, when I got home from work, his email was waiting for me, with an account of how he found the grave, along with nine photos complete with descriptions.

I am quite touched by his kindness and I'm using this entry to thank him publicly for his thoughtfulness. Below is one of the nine photos he snapped.

Thanks, John.

Sharing Two Holidays on the Same Day

The dreaded day is here at last. My birthday. And it's also Mother's Day. The end result is that I'm bummed about the milestone birthday and I'm missing my mother, all at once.

She and I got to share my birthday and Mother's Day on the same day once or twice back when I was a kid. My mother would have been happy to let that day be all about me, but my Dad made sure that her day wasn't forgotten about, either. After all, on the day I was born, she became a mother (albeit for the third time).

Though my mother made the birthday cake from scratch for me as she did any other year, my father made the meal. And although my Dad usually got her a potted plant of some kind for her garden, he had me to present a dozen roses to her as well.

My memory is a bit unclear on this part, but think the Mother's Day gift presentations came first, before the candles on my cake were lit and my presents appeared.

And, as I remember, my mother would always feel a little blue on Mother's Day, missing her own mother who had died the same year I was born. But I think on the time or two we shared the day, she was able to keep those thoughts at bay.

If my mother wasn't buried nearly a thousand miles away from me, I'd have stopped by the cemetery and left her some flowers today. As it is, my memories will have to do.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

Moral Indignation vs Jealousy

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
-- H. G. Wells

My brother and I have led very different lives. He is a few years shy of being old enough to be my father. And though he came of age during the turbulent sixties, the sexual revolution pretty much passed him by. As a teenager and young adult, he was passive and reserved among strangers and I don't think he dated until he left high school.

I remember him having only one girlfriend before meeting the woman who is now his wife. From the very beginning, she was the dominant force of the couple -- she was even the one to propose marriage.

They've been married for around thirty-five years and he's just as passive as ever. Whenever I've spoken to him over the phone, I can always hear the wife bickering in the background, and his attitude toward his marriage and his life seems more resigned than content to me.

As those who have read my blog for any time, my life is entirely different from his. I'm not the slightest bit passive when it comes to pursuing the opposite sex, nor have I ever allowed a woman to lead me around by the nose, nor would I abide a woman who constantly bickered just to hear her own voice. And I can't imagine myself staying in a situation that I was merely resigned to stick out, and not there because it made me happy.

Several years ago, when I was still in my brief marriage, not long after my son was born, my brother abandoned his passive nature for once and took it upon himself to lecture me about my tomcatting, telling me that I ought to settle down for the sake of my wife and son, that what I was doing was "disgusting", blah, blah, blah.

I didn't take kindly to this, as I never discussed my personal life with him and felt like it wasn't any of his business and I told him so, noting that he didn't seem particularly happy in the life he led.

He never mentioned it again, but ever since, there has been an invisible wall between us, and we've never been entirely comfortable with one another since.

From the perspective of years, I've realized that part of the motivation to his meddling was jealousy and, of course, "sour grapes".

I've not seen him in over a decade, nor spoken with him in about five years or so. I'm perfectly willing to do so, but I'm not going to go out of my way to do it, either.

It's too bad because we always got along fine when I was a kid and before he got married.

Happy Anniversary

Sixty-five years ago today, a young couple made their way downtown to the city's Episcopal Cathedral for a simple wedding. Sharing the couple's happiness was the bride's family: her parents, grandparents, siblings, and other assorted relatives. Though glad for the young couple, the groom's parents were unable to attend. It was wartime, you see, plus his family lived a thousand miles away and did not have the money for train fare. The interstate highway system was about fifteen years in the future and gas was strictly rationed, so taking the bus or driving were not practical solutions. I'm also guessing that domestic passenger flight at the time was irregular and spotty, and no doubt limited because of the war.

The 18 year old bride didn't plan on wearing a wedding gown. Because of the war, she'd thought that wearing a good suit would have been sufficient, and it would match well with the groom's sailor uniform. But her mother had talked her out of that, so she posed shivering in her almost-sleeveless gown in the winter cold as photos were taken of the wedding party outside her parents' home.

After the wedding, the happy couple took a short, sixty mile train ride to Boston for a whirlwind weekend honeymoon, as the groom was due to return to sea the following Monday. There was a war on, you know.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad, together in whatever afterlife might exist. Christmas isn't the same without you.

Inherited Personality Traits?

My son has had his new car only for two weeks now, but he's washed it at least half a dozen times. He went to Wal Mart, and bought all sorts of specialized paraphernalia meant to maximize car washing effectiveness, including a chamois, a big, fuzzy glove, some thing that looked like blue Medusa hair, and several other things.

Seeing all of this stuff, combined with the frequent car washing reminded me strongly of my brother. When my brother was about my son's age, he had a Porsche 911S that he washed almost every day with a similar variety of car washing paraphernalia. I can remember our mother teasing him, telling him that he'd wash all the paint off the car if he kept washing it so often.

Besides this, my son displays a lot of my brother's ways. Neither of them are overly tidy when it comes to general housecleaning habits, but when it comes to their personal belongings, both are meticulous. Both are fussy about how their electronic equipment is handled; I can remember my brother lecturing me about the proper way to handle an LP record and now I see my son being similarly careful with his CDs and DVDs.

Both are creative, musically and artistically. I share the musical talent with them, but I have no talents whatsoever for the visual arts. They are both rather private people, not backslapping, "one of the guys" types. They tend to take an avoidant approach to conflict -- most of the time.

But the thing is, my son doesn't know my brother, really. They've met a handful of times in my son's life and have never spent any extended length of time together. He most definitely hasn't picked up my brother's ways from observation.

We all know that physical traits are inherited. Is it possible that personality traits are in the genes as well?

Thoughts?

A Leap of Faith

When my son first told me he wanted to buy a new car and that he'd need a co-signer, I have to admit I was quite reluctant to do so. With my precarious financial situation and without any promising job prospects on the horizon, I knew that if my son ever had any trouble making his car payment, I'd not be able to take over the payments. I knew that if this happened, the car would be repossessed, leaving my credit in shambles.

It wasn't that I didn't trust my son to take his responsibility seriously. I knew that he would; he's matured greatly over the last few years. He's been recently hired at a new company at a decent starting salary and will get regular scheduled raises for the first year or two, that will make the car easier to pay for over time. He'd also been on his previous job for six years, which shows great stability.

Unlike many single people his age, he doesn't go clubbing each weekend, nor does he drink or do drugs. He's avoided getting himself into credit trouble, declining every credit card offer made to him. Nor has he ever gotten into any trouble with the law.

My major concern was with the financial health of his new employer. In our uncertain economy, it's not an uncommon thing for a company to go out of business, so the possibility of my son's employer going belly-up was largely behind my reluctance to be a co-signer.

Nevertheless, I took a leap of faith and signed the papers for my son's car anyway.

Later, after it was all said and done, he came up to me and hugged me. "Thank you for trusting me," he said. "I love you."

At that moment, my misgivings vanished and I knew it would be all right. I could almost sense my father looking on in approval from the afterlife. Until that moment, I hadn't known how important it was to my son for me to believe in him in this way.

Thoughts?

Better Than I Thought

My son bought his first brand new car this week. As he had no real credit, good or bad, I was asked to co-sign for him.

I didn't expect the dealership to accept this, considering that my son now makes quite a bit more money than I do. Plus I had a bankruptcy in 1993 and since losing the best-paying job I ever had three years ago, I've been struggling along in a job that pays quite a bit less than what I was making before. I'm still paying off bills I incurred while I was working at that job and it's been a slow, tedious process.

To my surprise, they accepted the application with no trouble and my son got a good deal that should work well with his budget. When I told them of my misgivings, they said that I actually had a very good credit score -- 733. Not too shabby for someone who's been through the financial scrapes that I've been through in recent years.

Anyway, I'm happy to see him so tickled with his first brand new car. He did better than I did -- I didn't get my first new car until I was 42.

Grandparents

A child needs a grandparent, anybody's grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world.
~Charles and Ann Morse

In most ways, I consider my childhood to have been superior to that of my son. I grew up in a better time and place, with more affluent surroundings, and for most of my childhood, I had a larger immediate family. But there is one factor of his childhood that was largely missing from my own.

Grandparents.

Yes, I had both a living great-grandmother and grandmother (mother and daughter) when I was born, but they always lived several states away, so they were more a concept than a reality when I was growing up. I met the great grandmother, born in 1879, once or twice when I was very young. She died when I was seven, so I have only the vaguest, most fleeting memory of her.

Her daughter, my father's mother, lived until I was nearly 30. Up until my mother died when I was thirteen, I knew her no better than my great grandmother. I met her a couple of times during family vacations, but she was not a part of my everyday life.

Both my grandfathers died before they were as old as I am now, so I have no concept whatsoever of having a grandparent of my own gender.

All my childhood friends had grandparents who lived nearby that they saw often who, more likely than not, were a source of gifts, cookies, patience, and understanding. I have to admit I'd be more than a little jealous about the attention my friends received from their grandparents, especially at Christmastime.

As a preteen, I got to know my mother's young aunt, only ten years her senior. She was everything my friends' grandmothers were to them, so she quickly became a grandmother figure to me. But though I got to see her more often than my real grandmother, she did live sufficiently far away that she was not quite an everyday part of my life, either.

After my mother died, my grandmother came to live with us for a year, so I got to know her then, though I'd preferred to have done it when I wasn't grieving for my mother. But I am grateful for that year, because my grandmother became a reality for me, rather than a concept.

My son had a grandfather and later, a stepgrandmother, living near him from the day he was born until nearly fifteen years later when my father died. They were an integral part of his everyday life for those years; he spent as much or more time at their house as he did at mine. Much of who he is today is because of their influence.

I think one of the greatest gifts I gave my son was that of grandparents.

However, I have no desire to become a grandfather myself. Just as I preferred being a child to being a parent, I prefer being a grandchild to being a grandparent. I just don't think I have it in me to be one of those ideal patient, generous grandpas. I know it is bound to happen sooner or later, but my son seems in no hurry to reproduce.

Thoughts?

From the Mouths of Children

As anyone who is a parent knows, sometimes kids can say the most off-the-wall things. I'm sure I said my share of crap, but the only thing I can remember is being a preschooler and watching my Dad do his income tax. My parents died laughing when I went over to my Dad and informed him that I was tax deductible. Who knows where the hell I heard that from.

I have a cousin eight years younger than me who always mixed up the words "aunt" and "uncle" when she was little. I can clearly remember her calling my father "Auntie" when she was about five or so. Everyone in the family teased her for years about that one.

My son came up with a few winners when he was a kid.

When he was three, if you asked him his age, he'd tell you that he was forty-five. I don't know where the hell he got that from

About a year later, if you asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he'd tell you he wanted to be a hit man. Seriously. The only thing I can figure is that he must have picked it up from one of the crime movies I'd watched back then.

A few years later, my father's car broke down. Very concerned, he asked my Dad if his car had had a heart attack.

Along that same time, I took him to eat dinner at the house of a married couple who were my friends. We were served steak and my son's steak had a thick strip of fat on it. Looking at the fat distastefully, he turned to the hostess and asked her if he had to eat the "rubber part". We all broke up and I'm still laughing now as I remember this.

What are some of the funny things your kids have said?

Crossed Wires

While listening to a talk show on the radio the other day, I was reminded of an incident that happened when my son was a pre-teen, when I was still on the police force.

The day in question was one of my days off from work. My son had spent the previous night with his grandparents and my father had taken him to school that morning. As I commonly do, I planned to spend the afternoon in some woman's bed. I'd spoken to my father that morning and he said he'd pick up my son at school, then he'd take him to the mall where I could meet them to pick him up.

So, I went off and had a happy afternoon of debauchery. Later that afternoon, I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed, so I'd not be late to meet my father. I found him walking his laps around the mall, but my son was nowhere in sight.

I asked my father where he was and he said he was about to ask me the same thing. Apparently, we'd gotten our wires crossed and each had thought the other was going to pick him up from school. A couple of moments later, my very angry stepmother comes steaming into the mall with my embarrassed son trailing behind her. When neither I nor my father had shown up at the school, my son called her at home to come get him.

She lit into me for "forgetting" to pick up my son at school, that I was so selfish thinking of nothing beyond my own pleasure, blah, blah, blah, blah. Even when my father interrupted to say that it wasn't anyone's fault, but a simple misunderstanding, she was not mollified and continued ranting at me.

When she got like that, there was no reasoning with her, so I told my Dad I'd see him later, and my son and I left the mall, then stopped at a burger place on the way home.

I'd not thought about this incident in years

Being in the Right Place at the Right Time

When I was a kid and my mother was still alive, our family normally went on some sort of Saturday outing each week, whether it was to go to the flea market, go to the mall, visit a site of historical interest, whatever.

During these trips, we usually stopped at a fast-food place to have lunch. Back in the late sixties, fast food chains did not have drive-through windows; you had to get out of the car and go into the store to get it, even if it was to go. Our habit was for my Dad or my brother to go in and get the food for everyone, including the dog if we'd brought him along that day, and we'd eat in the parked car.

On one of these typical Saturdays, we were sitting in the car eating our burgers when we saw a car on the road suddenly veer sharply to the right, which then crashed through the front window of the diner across the street.

My much older brother, who was then an operating room technician, immediately jumped out of the car, and sprinted across the street, to see if there was anything he could do to help. The rest of us followed at a more careful pace.

When he got there, the driver of the car wasn't breathing; my brother found him slumped over the wheel. No one inside the restaurant was hurt, so he focused his attention on the driver. He started CPR on the man, then known as "mouth-to-mouth resuscitation". It worked, but unfortunately the man threw up on my brother, but my brother kept it up until the ambulance arrived, when he stood aside to allow them to take over, at which time they thanked him for his help.

It turned out that the man had had a heart attack while driving, which caused him to crash into the building; his need for CPR had not been caused by the accident.

Thanks to my brother, the man was alive when the ambulance took him away, but he later died in the hospital, unfortunately.

Bittersweet Christmas

I've spent a good part of my adult life having minimal contact with my family, both immediate and extended. This is partially because of circumstances and partially out of choice. And since my father died, the family contact has dwindled to almost nil.

I keep in contact with an aunt through IM and perhaps two phone calls a year with my sister, and that's about it. I've not seen my brother or sister in over a decade. I've had no contact whatsoever with my brother in over two years, his choice, not mine, for reasons only known to him. I live near my father's extended family, but they cut off whatever sporadic contact they had with me immediately after his death. I've never been invited to share any sort of holiday gatherings with them since that time. They've never approved of how I live my life, and now that he's gone, they feel no need to continue any charade of a family relationship. That's ok, because I don't especially approve of their fundamentalist lifestyles any more than I approve of my libertine one.

So, for several years now, Christmas has been a quiet, largely uncelebrated day for me. Some years, as with last year, I'm able to spend it with a lover, but mostly my lovers are unavailable to me on that day, as they have families to spend it with and my presence at any of those celebrations would elicit too many unwanted and unwelcome questions. I usually make sure to find lovers to visit on the days approaching Christmas and directly after, which has worked out well for me. This year, my primary lover is spending Christmas up north with her parents, and no others will be available, so I'll be here with my son, who will no doubt spend most of the day asleep.

For most of the year, I am quite happy with remaining aloof from my family, but that all changes at Christmas time, when I miss my parents most, the warm family relationship I experienced as a child, and the Christmases we shared. The last such Christmas for me was Christmas 1970, when I was twelve years old. By the time Christmas 1971 came, my father, siblings, and I were still reeling from my mother's death earlier that year. For as long as my father lived, Christmas always had a somber tone to it, as Christmas was also his wedding anniversary. This was alleviated somewhat after his grandchildren arrived, but Christmas always remained an occasion for him to grieve anew.

If it were possible, I'd choose to go spend Christmas in 1970.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my readers.

Christmas Past

Both my parents grew up during the Depression. My mother was the eldest of four children and her family had an easier time of it during that time than my father, who was the eldest child in a tenant farmer family of eight children. Today, I thought I'd share with you how they each celebrated Christmas during their childhoods.

My father never got much for Christmas, as his family was poor and there were so many kids. The family never had a Christmas tree, but each child got a stocking that they would hang on the fireplace mantel on Christmas Eve each year. He never got much: some oranges and bananas, nuts, a new pair of mittens or a winter scarf, and the like. But he was surrounding by a loving family and didn't know any different, so he was happy.

My mother did better at Christmas time, though it was still humble by today's standards. Her family had a lighted tree each year and they exchanged gifts. My grandfather, who was a welder, made two outdoor electric candles from iron pipes some time during my mother's childhood. They were about four feet tall each, painted red, and each had a flame-shaped light bulb at top. They would be placed on either side of the front door each year for the Christmas season. These candles survived my grandfather and graced our front porch each year during my childhood and even into my son's childhood. It was a nice little reminder of the grandfather I was never lucky enough to meet. Unfortunately, after my father died, they disappeared, and I'm guessing that my ex-stepmother just threw them out, not knowing their sentimental value.

During World War II, Americans were under a rationing system for certain goods made out of materials that were essential to the war effort. Shoes were an item that fell under rationing. I remember my mother told me that each person was allowed two new pairs of shoes per year. One year, her grandmother gave my mother her shoe ration card as a Christmas present, as she was an old lady and had plenty of shoes and didn't need a new pair. My mother, on the other hand, was a teenager who loved getting new shoes, and she was very appreciative of my great-grandmother's gift to her.

As for me, I'm very glad to have been a kid in the 1960s and 70s, as I made out like a bandit each year.

Christmas Plans or Lack Thereof

My primary lover has decided to fly to her parents' home for Christmas. They've been having serious marital problems this past year, and she believes she needs to go, as it might be their last Christmas spent together as a family.

She doesn't want to leave me behind, but I'd just make it more awkward for her, as neither of her parents approve of our relationship. I couldn't afford to make the trip, both money and time-wise (I only get Christmas Eve and Day off), anyway, and I wouldn't feel comfortable with her paying my way, even though she has offered to. I've urged her to go ahead and have a good Christmas with them, assuring her I'll be fine.

So, my son and I will be spending Christmas alone. He'll probably sleep all day and I'll likely just read and surf the net. Perhaps I'll call my sister on the phone, as I think she's spending the holiday alone as well. I don't know if I'll get to see any other lovers that day, as they all have families to spend the holiday with and, with some of them, I'd be a decidedly unwelcome guest at one of their family gatherings.

Today, my son and I went up to the mall and I bought him his Christmas gifts. Money is tight this year, but I wanted to make sure he had some gifts that he actually wanted. I knew he wanted clothes, but I don't have a good handle on his taste or size, so this is how we do Christmas.

A Christmas Tradition

Every year, when it came time to decorate the Christmas tree, when my mother and, later, my father, would unpack the lights and the ornaments, they'd find light strands that no longer worked, boxes of broken ornaments, and there would never be enough extension cords.

So, we'd all go out to buy what we needed. When we lived in South Jersey in the late sixties and into the seventies, there was always one place we went to first. This was a garden center/nursery called Gaudio's. My parents used Gaudio's in the summer too, for plants, fertilizer, lawn care items, and the like, but it was only when the Christmas season rolled around that Gaudio's became interesting to me. This store really outdid itself when it came to providing everything needed to decorate for the holidays.

As well as having aisles devoted to every type of Christmas decorating imaginable and also wrapping paper, ribbons, and bows, Gaudio's devoted one room as a kind of a Christmas wonderland. Inside this darkened room lit only by strands of Christmas lights, were several Christmas trees decorated in various styles. There was a winding path among the trees with fake snow covering the floor. As a kid, I couldn't wait to see this each year and it never failed to get me into the Christmas spirit. I don't know if I'd be as impressed seeing it now as an adult, but just remembering it now is enough to put me in a Christmas mood.

Indeed, while looking online to see if there was anything on the net about Gaudio's, I was suddenly overcome with a great homesickness for New Jersey, a place I've not seen in over 25 years. Unfortunately, all I could find were some passing references to this store, and I'm guessing it's no longer in business. Too bad.

Is there a place like Gaudio's in your Christmas past? And for those of you who lived in the South Jersey, Philadelphia metropolitan area, did any of you ever go to Gaudio's?

First Flight

I first traveled by plane in January of 1977, when I was not quite nineteen. It was during my first year of college and I was going to visit with my sister for a week before returning to school for the spring semester.

I remember it being bitterly cold as I boarded the American Airlines 727. Indeed, the plane had to be de-iced before we could take off, which didn't exactly inspire confidence in flying for me. I looked out the window as the procedure was being done and I recall the de-icing substance having a pinkish color.

Nevertheless, the flight went off without a hitch and we landed safely in Boston, where it was even colder. To finish the last leg of the journey, I boarded a small ten passenger plane, so small that I could not stand up straight in it, and there was no latrine aboard. This flight was also uneventful -- until we landed, that is. The runway was a sheet of ice and as the plane touched down, it slid and skidded all over the runway, finally coming to a stop.

I've flown several times since then, the last time being in the mid-90s, when I accompanied my father on his last flight for his funeral. With the way boarding procedures are now, I'm not sure if I'm eager to fly again any time soon.

My son's first flight came much earlier in life, in October of 1983 when he was two years old, when we flew to attend a family reunion. He was excited about the trip, treating it as a grand adventure, not having the slightest bit of fear.

I let him have the window seat, so he could see the ground get smaller, then watch the clouds from above as we reached cruising altitude. I remember that he was so little that I had to put his stuffed animal (Heathcliff the cat) on his lap and buckle the seat belt around them both so it wouldn't be too loose. He's flown a few times since then, one time without me, when he went to Disneyland with his stepgrandmother.

My mother never once traveled by plane, and my grandmother flew for the first and last time when she was 74 years old.

Let's hear about your first flight.

Wrong Information

Were you ever given information as a child from your parents, other relatives, and adults that later turned out to be totally wrong? I mean stuff they told you in good faith, believing it true themselves, and not attempts to mislead you.

I can remember being in the fourth grade or so and asking my mother what B.C. and A.D. meant. She got it half right; she told me B.C. meant "Before Christ", but she thought A.D. meant "After Death". It was several years later that I learned it was Anno Domini. I became suspicious of the accuracy of what she said when I realized that Christ was supposed to have died in 33 A.D., so what about the previous 32 years? It wouldn't make sense if A.D. was "After Death".

Another time, I asked her what would happen to our house if a tornado struck. She told me that the house could withstand it, which I don't think she actually believed, but told me that so I'd not worry. Nevertheless, I didn't quite believe her, my common sense telling me different after having seen the Wizard of Oz.

I remember my mother's aunt telling me that via meaning "by way of", as used in postal communications should be spelled "vie". I didn't say anything to my aunt, but even at ten years old that didn't sound right to me.

Lastly, I remember learning about the Hindenburg in school and then discussing with a friend at his house, referring to it as a "dirigible". I pronounced it correctly, but his father broke in and told me I was wrong; that it should be said, "dur jibbel". Again, I knew he was dead wrong, but I held my tongue, though later I laughed about it with my parents.

What kind of wrong information did you get as a kid?

Political Correctness and Childbirth

Recently, I heard a group of women talking about fathers in the delivery room, breastfeeding, "natural" childbirth, and the like. They were all in agreement that fathers should witness their childrens' births, that mothers should have unmedicated births and should breastfeed afterwards. It would seem as if political correctness extends in how people have children.

And it seems as if my one connection to a child being born was in no way politically correct, according to these women's standards.

I was not present in the delivery room for my son's birth, though I sat with her a good bit in the labor room. She was reticent about the matter, and I wasn't really eager to see it, either. I also thought the medical team could do their jobs better if I were not there underfoot as well.

I don't have a problem with couples who want to share this experience, but I scratch my head at those who want to make a big production about it: filming it, allowing every relative, friend, and acquaintance up to and including the mailman to be there watching, too. It seems to be a very private, personal thing that should be limited to the couple responsible for it.

She also wasn't interested in being a hero by going for unmedicated birth. Both of us were wanted the ordeal to be as smooth and pain-free as medically possible. We both had the idea that pain = bad. We considered that as long as the baby was born alive and healthy, how one chose to give birth was immaterial.

The ex also chose not to breastfeed, as she didn't want to have to be the one who always got up in the middle of the night to feed him. And, yes, I took my turn at this quite a few times. It also allowed her to go back to work without worrying about the logistics of how the baby was to be fed. As it turned out, with her running off before he was a y ear old, this was one less logistical problem I had to deal with when I was left to raise him alone.

Pretty much, though, we didn't see anything wrong with how our parents had handled these matters when we were born and saw no reason to change.

Thoughts?

Dealing With Death in My Own Way

It's October again. Since childhood, this has been my favorite time of the year, with its cooler temperatures and impending holiday season. But because both of my parents ending up dying in October, it's also a bittersweet time for me.

My father died in the middle of October several years ago, after an unsuccessful attempt to recover from a massive heart attack and emergency bypass surgery he'd had the previous July. Indeed, I now believe that he only lasted as long as he did because of his stubborn nature -- no one can say that he didn't try to get better. But I think once he realized that all the will in the world would not return him to the life he'd known before, he just slipped away, once he'd accepted that fact.

It had been an exhausting and stressful three months, hoping against hope that he'd eventually turn a corner and begin to improve, despite all indications to the contrary. It was exhausting to see the person who loved me most in the world to teeter so long at the brink of death, never quite knowing whether he'd beat the odds or not. It was stressful for other reasons as well; during this time, his relatives showed their true colors and openly expressed their disapproval of me, at a time when I didn't need to be dealing with such things. Oh, I'd always known the sentiment was there, but as long as my father was alive and in full possession of his faculties, they'd dared not express it openly. But no sooner than his grave condition became known, their discretion was gone and the gloves came off.

After he died, we had a memorial service for him here, with the funeral to be held a few days later in another state, where he was to join my mother for burial. My son and I were to accompany him there on his last flight.

At the memorial service were many people I didn't know, along with the relatives from his side of the family, and some friends. One of my lovers at the time also came to support me in my hour of need, even though she'd never met my father.

After the service, there was a gathering at my father's house, complete with food and drinks. I drove my son over there, but I had no intention of staying and making nice with the relatives who'd only added to my burden in the previous three months. I'd spoken with the lover mentioned above right after the service and she'd invited me to come to her house and I'd accepted.

As I turned to leave after dropping my son off, one busybody aunt who'd given me a particularly bad time during my father's illness called out, "Where are you going?" in the same tone of voice one would use when catching a dog shitting on the living room rug. Not wanting to create a scene, I ignored her, got into my car and sped off.

I spent the afternoon in bed with the lover, drowning my sorrows in the pleasures of sex. It's always been natural for me to turn to sex as a balm to soothe any kind of problem I might be having, as well as enjoying it for a host of various other reasons. Sex also represents hope and life to me, and these were two things I most needed to remind myself of on that particular day. Nevertheless, this day was one of the few times I ever did the deed with tears in my eyes.

I returned to my father's house a few hours later to pick up my son and take him home. My busybody aunt was in the kitchen doing dishes as I came in and lit into me immediately, correctly guessing what I'd gone to do. In a loud voice, she told me what a miserable excuse for a human being I was and how could I go off and "tomcat" on a day like this, blah, blah, blah, blah. All this was said in front of my not quite fifteen year old son, and the relatives that were still lingering.

Still, I didn't want to get into a shouting match with her, as my father's widow didn't need to deal with that, so I merely told her to go to hell and motioned my son out the door and we left.

This aunt had, for all intents and purposes, become the family matriarch after my grandmother had passed away in the late 80s. After this day, and apparently because of her influence, none of the family has had anything to do with me.

I can't say that I miss them.

Thoughts?