Everything Ends

Well, its been a very long time since I have sat down to write a blog post or for that matter really, sit down and write anything.  After moving to our new house last September, the rhythm that I had; wake up, walk the dogs, sit down and write; has been completely thrown out the window.  Trust me, its not out of lack of desire that I haven't written anything, for I have thought about it often, it just seems the energy hasn't been there.  Between raising two little children, taking care of our rental house, and dealing with the busiest winter of work I have ever had, I have not had much energy to do much of anything else.  While I have been healthier overall, it seems that as you get older, you really need to set your mind to doing something in order to actually get it done.  You can not just persistently cram extra activities into a day and expect to maintain the same amount of energy and divest of it evenly across the board, it just doesn't happen.  While I may be preaching to the choir of older readers, for those who are younger and don't have children, having a 3.5 and a 1 year old running around the house craving your attention is not the easiest of tasks.  Every minute I am home that they are awake requires me to bring my A-game, whether or not I have it in me to bring it.  I love every second of it, but its not always a walk in the park.  But while my experiences over that past year has inclined me to think about writing, it hasn't provided the impetus necessary to actually make me sit down and write.  And while I am sitting down now and writing (yes, partly about them), it is a different situation that is occurring that has driven me back to the computer.  My grandfather, Dziadziu, is not doing so well right now.  He is 90 years old now and has lived a full life.  At this point, there is no hiding that he is old and tired, and he has even said that he can't do this anymore.  Yet, there is still a small piece of him holding on, maintaining a grip on life because of my grandmother, his wife for over 50 years, that he has been through thick and thin with and has devoted his life to helping.  Well, he can't help her much anymore and its coming to the point where he can't really help himself either.  Two weeks ago, just from trying to get himself out of bed, he fell on three separate occasions, the last of which sent him to the hospital for a bump on his head.  About two months before that, he fell trying to the do the same thing and broke a number of ribs.  And yet, something within him is still holding on, but none of us know for how much longer. 

 

Over the past few days, his decline has become more apparent in the sense that he can not even feed himself because he is in so much pain.  I don't see him every day, but we all went over there on Easter as a family to spend a little time with him.  With what little eyesight he has left, he was able to see our daughter walking around (about a week after she finally mustered the trust within herself to do so) and our son who, after a few years, finally got over his fear of them as "old people" and gave both him and my grandmother, Babci, a kiss before leaving.  I was happy that it turned out that way, happy that we made the time to get over there and spend at least a little time with them.   Being there and seeing Dziadziu, you can tell just from looking at him that he has had enough and is ready to move on.  The decline he has gone through just over the past year is distinct and noticeable.  From at least attempting to walk with help a year ago to his hunched over, pained state that he is in now, you can tell that life is dwindling for him.  During the hour or so that we visited with them on Easter, he dozed off in his chair perhaps a half a dozen times.  Its in and out of sleeping at this point for him.  He did tell one joke to my dad while we were there which made me smile, but it wasn't with the same gusto or laughing that he used to imbue it with.  Yet, that is the circle of life, that is where we all are headed.  Knowing it doesn't make it any easier to watch, but I feel that part of why we all have so much trouble with dying and death is because we want to preserve the notions in our mind of how our loved ones used to be.  We have memories that bring smiles to our face and images of activities we used to do together and there is a fear that once our loved ones are gone, that those memories will fade.  I think one of our biggest failings as humans is to persistently see people where they are and take them in their present moment, not holding them to visions from our past or what we think they should be like in the future.  For me, it is only when I think about the memories of my Dziadziu that tears come to my eyes.  When I see him in his current state and deal with him in my mind only on that level, I am OK.  I am sad, to be sure, but my love for him is solely in the present and doesn't hinge upon anything else.  At this point, I know he just needs to rest.  He has had a long life, a good life, but even he knows he needs to rest now. 

 

None of us knows when he will throw in the proverbial towel or when God will call him, but we all know it can't be too long now.  From my experiences with Dziadziu over the course of my life, I have come to learn that while remembering times together at this stage of life can bring some tears, what brings more sadness and tears is the thought that we could have been closer, were it within me to be closer to him.  But that was not the way I lived my life.  If I can share one thing with my children (at least the one thing right now that I want to share with them) is to take advantage of every moment they have with my parents.  Grandparents can have such an influence on their grandchildren, and yet most times it goes unnoticed.  Young children take for granted the time they have with them because for them, time is endless.  As little kids, "time" isn't really a thought.  There is no thought paid to the fact that their grandparents only have a finite amount of time where they can run with them, play in the grass with them, and be their best buddies till time starts wearing heavily on them.  I hope that through my actions, I can teach my children to live each moment fully and be fully "present" in every encounter they have.  Will they?  Time will tell, but as of right now, I think the will.  I think if they keep on their inquisitive track, their full embrace of everything in the present, that they will learn the importance of the hear and now, not the past and not the future.  Nothing is guaranteed to us, not a second past the one we have just lived, and I hope they learn that as early as possible so they can take advantage of every moment given to them.  As for Dziadziu, my only hope is that they pain doesn't get too much for him to handle.  I know we are all given what we can handle in life, but I hope he can learn to let go when he needs to, whether its next week, or next month, or whenever.  May he find his peace.

Curiosity of Children

Our son has reached the wonderful age of almost 3 where memory starts to really take hold and curiosity is at an all time high.  In addition to that, his imagination is running rampant and his perseverance in any activity is astounding.  So now that I have all my superlatives and descriptors out of the way, let me get down to how awesome my son's age is.  Not that I don't love my daughter just as much, its just that she is at a different stage in her life being only 8 months old.  Never fear, I shall be spending time talking about her as well, but for now, I'll talk about my son.  As when I went on sabbatical back in May (yes, I am calling it a sabbatical because it sounds like I meant to stop writing that way), every day brings something new from our son that is amazing and awesome.   While he has his moments of throwing tantrums, they are not a constant presence, and all in all, they are not as bad as I sometimes envisioned them being.  The only part of the tantrums that really get under my skin is when he gets calm, looks you right in the eye, and does exactly what you don't want him to do.  He knows he is doing something wrong, he just wants to get under your skin.  I still love him through it all.  While we have rules about what our son can and can not do, when it comes to trying new things, we don't inhibit him.  If he wants to climb up on the stool that is taller than he is, we let him try, and often to our amazement, he gets up it by himself.   Once he sets his mind to doing something, he often times accomplishes what he set out to do.  If he can't, he'll ask for help at which point I will show him how to do something and he will do it by himself.  Perhaps the ultimate came the a few weekends ago when I was watching him play outside.  I was sitting in a chair up on our patio and when he saw me sitting there, he told me he was going to bring the ladder up there so we could do some work.  Mind you, this is a six foot aluminum step ladder.  So I said, "OK, go ahead."  He started dragging the ladder up, but didn't make it too far as it is much bigger than he is and a little awkward to carry.  So instead, he decided he was going to set it up.  He didn't ask, he just laid it flat, grabbed it by the top, and walked it up to a standing position at which point he pulled the legs apart and proceeded to walk up it.  I think if I had seen myself watching him, I would have seen my jaw on the ground.  I had never showed him how to set up, especially not walking it up from the top like he did, and yet he managed to put the ladder up all by himself.

Its not just putting up a ladder, but its exploring anything and everything and making an attempt at doing everything himself.  There is nothing (unless its extremely dangerous) that we won't let him try by himself.  If he wants to pour syrup on his pancakes, we let him, even if it means pouring the lake of syrup that has inundated his pancake back into the bottle.  If he wants to pour himself some milk, we let him, even if it means cleaning up the flowing river of milk that escaped the cup he was attempting to pour the milk into.  I live his independence and drive to do things himself.  Do things take a little bit longer sometimes?  Absolutely, but its worth it in my mind.  I would rather have things take longer and allow our son's confidence in his own abilities to grow than to just do everything myself in the effort to speed things along.  Whenever our son has a question about something (which happens to be all the time), I do my best to take a few extra minutes, explain things to him, and even go show him things if possible (such as cranes, lifts, excavators, bulldozers, tractors, etc.)   Its not just our son who is curious about everything, but our daughter, now that she is past the half year mark by 2 months, is growing more and more curious about the world around her.  She watches everything her brother does with wide eyes with what I'm sure is the intent of replicating it when she is old enough.  I think a lot of the curiosity that my son exhibits and that I'm sure my daughter exhibits as well is due to the fact that they must interact with the world without a screen in front of them.  We still do not utilize phones, TV's, or computers as babysitters and I feel that it is doing them a world of good.  Our son, having occasionally watched my wife and I use our phones as actual phones, has a few pretend phones that he likes to carry around and call people on.  It is the cutest thing, he will tell us who he is calling and have a brief conversation with them.  Sometimes, he asks us to call them on his phone at which point we get to have those awesome one sided conversations.  His imagination is definitely taking hold and showing itself in a big way now.  Just within the past month or two, he has really made leaps and bounds with his imagination, memory, and even his overall understanding of the world and how the pieces fit together.  Trust me, he is still a long way from figuring everything out, but then again, I would have to say the same thing for myself.  None of that matters though.  At night when we put our daughter to bed first, he still always gives her a kiss and says, "I'll see you tomorrow!"   Its the cutest thing and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  

Where to Begin

In case anyone was wondering, I did not just fall off the face of the earth back in May.  (I think that is when my last blog post was)  Rather, the big event that put my writing on hold was the return of my wife to work after finishing her maternity leave.  While getting my wife and one child out of the house manageable with including a half hour of writing in the morning, I quickly found out that getting my wife and 2 children out of the house (including writing) wasn't going to happen right away.  And as most of you might know, once you stop doing something that has become a habit for a while, the longer you wait to re-start that habit, the harder it is to do so.  Yet here I am, hoping to re-start my morning writing.  While I will strive to make it an everyday occurrence, I can't guarantee anything and will be more than satisfied if I can sit down and actually write 3 days a week.  In any case, while my wife going back to work may have been the driving factor with me moving away from writing for a bit, there was a whole confluence of events that managed to keep me away for the whole summer.  

A brief overview of my life since May will now commence.  After my wife went back to work, she stumbled upon this awesome house that had just recently gone on the market.  I looked at it, was impressed, and we started the ball rolling with how we could buy it.  The kicker was, we couldn't sell our old house due to the still depressed market.  So, we somehow made it happen where we held on to the old house deciding that we would rent it out while also buying the new one.  Having not bought a house since before the market crashed back in 2008, I was completely unaware as to how ridiculous getting a mortgage has become.  They need to know everything about everything.  It wouldn't put it past the mortgage company to request a DNA swab to verify that it was in fact me requesting a mortgage.   Yet, it all went through somehow and we moved into the new house this past labor day.  So when I say this summer has been a whirl wind, I am not joking.  I have no idea where the time went, can't believe its October already, and am still flying by the seat of my pants.  The most important part in all of this is that everyone is happy and healthy.  For now, I must run and get the house ready to roll, but I am back, and hope to stay back now.