2006 will always be special to me because it is my son’s birth year. It has been a great eight months and I look forward to each day spent with my son and my wife.
There was a neat article on resolutions by Al Young, California’s poet laureate, in the Book Review section of today’s L.A. Times. I’ll share my favorite parts:
“Remind yourself again and again and yet again that This Is It. That is to say, this melting moment is it, is all you’ve got. Write this on a Post-it note and paste it on your bathroom mirror. Then, morning or night, when you glance or gaze at yourself, you’ll know the score.”
“Spread love. Let those close or close by know how much they mean to you. How else are they going to know?”
“Speak less and listen even more closely than you do now . . . . Fran Liebowitz spoke truth when she said that many of her writing students have trouble writing credible dialogue because they think the opposite of talking is waiting.”
Every year I make resolutions, some specific, some more general like those above. When I finish here I will sit down and write them out.
I try to remind myself that This Is It every day. Certainly, the newspaper is full of reminders. For instance, I cannot look at the fallen soldiers page of the obituaries without tears coming to my eyes as I think of the people (often young children) these fallen heroes left behind and how fortunate I am to have another day to hold my son.
And every now and then there is a happy story reminding me that This Is It. In the Sports section this week there was an article about a young California high school football player who was paralyzed on the field in the 1970s. His hero was Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler who, after he was told the circumstances and that he was the player’s hero, visited him in the hospital and showed up a few years later at his senior football banquet with a Michigan helmet and football. The coach has died, but the player lives and although his memory of the specifics of the meetings has faded his memory of their importance has not.
Just a few days later, there was an obituary of a mall security guard who was paralyzed eight years ago when a woman jumped to her death and landed on him. He was trying to talk her out of committing suicide and refused to move when she said she was jumping. According to his family, he never felt sorry for himself or regretted his actions.
This Is It.
After Bodie was born, I made a goal to have my family all live within a reasonable distance of each other. Every day I miss my mother and father, my sisters and their families. I long to raise my son as I was raised: with the instant friendship of cousins and the warm love of grandparents, aunts, and uncles nearby. I haven’t done much to accomplish that goal because it’s difficult: we live close to Kristi’s family and don’t want to leave them and I doubt I could convince my parents and sisters to move to neutral territory such as Duluth, MN.
So, my goal is worthy, but one resolution I will write tonight is more short-range: to get to Alabama to see my sister Jina and her family and to get to Florida to see my parents and my sister Kristen and her family.
Look out mom, dad, Kristen, and Jina; you’re on my list!
