Weekend warrior

Before I became a parent, it seemed a weekend was loaded with so much extra time to do whatever I felt like, or didn't feel like, doing. Now, it seems like there's so much to think about and do with a little one around. I'm not complaining about the reason I'm a parent in any way, shape or form. We waited for her, sometimes impatiently, to arrive. But parenthood is the phenomenon which has compressed my free time the most in the last four years.
I'm a procrastinator already and it just forces more things to get shoved tomorrow's column. I'm learning how to schedule and juggle things on the weekend and felt pretty good - all things considered about what I got done today. But I try to balance the pressure to get things accomplished in my time off and just enjoy being home with my family.
What do you do to juggle off time with the need to get things accomplished around the house?

Connection without face-time (in most cases)

Over the past year, Amanda and I have gotten to know many people around the United States and a few in other parts of the world through our online connections.
We feel connected to them in some ways more easily and directly sometimes even more than people we've met in person. Why? Because of the conversations we've had on Twitter, e-mail and other forms of electronic communication.
I've been in one particular group of people who share a common background and I feel more comfortable with them than I do with some in-person friends because they are right there with me on this specific issue - they've thought the same things and fought the same battles in their hearts. We are kindred even though we haven't all met in person. We share life and we're as far as 600 miles away.
We've even gotten to know people on the other side of the world and chatted via video or through instant message, just sharing what's on our hearts or minds at the moment.
So, we have family we haven't met in person yet and we're glad to have the bigger, broader definition of family active in our lives.

Oops!

I wasn't doing this for a prize, but I feel asleep on the couch in the late hours of Friday and woke up early Saturday morning fully intending not to go bed without having blogged and it still bugs me that I missed the window. So here I am, backpedaling barely seven days into the month.
This being said, I am attempting to write now with the hope of writing again later in the day to satisfy Saturday's blogging requirement and have that count - somehow! :)
What do you do to try to make up for something when you've missed a deadline or otherwise just plain messed up? Do you try to make it work somehow, just ignore it or find another way to deal or not deal with it?

How daddies can be caregivers too

Have you ever had one of those instant flashes where you knew what was ahead of you and could only just deal with it and not run away? I got one of those Wednesday.
I walked into Jadyn's daycare. She was resting her head on one of the worker's laps.
Not normal.
One cheek was flush red instead of its usual, lighter shade.
Not normal.
They said she'd been running a fever, but couldn't agree on the degree. So I checked at home - 102.9 F/39.4 C.
Not normal.
With the pattern of normality now fully off kilter, I settled into the caregiver role, since Amanda was 10 hours or so away in Oklahoma. I gave her medication to fight the fever and worked to get her to bed.
Several hours I got her to sleep in her bed, she decides to come into where I'm sleeping and we don't stay asleep for long. So, at somewhere around 5 a.m., I'm up and awake this morning and so is Jadyn.
I get her to the doctor and take careful notes regarding his diagnosis so I can report back to Amanda and the daycare center. The diagnosis was ILI (Influenza Like Illness) - through tests and examination, the doctor ruled out strep, pneumonia and flu. Basically, he said she's a normal child with a fever and sore throat.
So, we get some food at McDonald's, clean up the house a bit and then take a nap, awaking to Amanda back in the house!
Sometimes we're faced with situations outside of our comfort zones and elements and we just have to deal and run with that which we're dealt. I did and think I came out on the other end OK. :)
So when have you faced a situation where you've had to do something you're not used to and how did you manage?

Tearing down the walls

Through the past several months, I've noticed something about Twitter.
I've tweeted about this before, but I think it bears repeating: Folks from a wide sampling across the social media service, at least the ones I've encountered, are from different backgrounds.
Race, color, culture and even to some degree gender segregation and body weight lines are largely erased on Twitter. Why? I think it's because the focus is on 140 characters, not other aspects of the person.
I didn't grow up in a house with a strongly vengeful attitude toward black people but one likely shared by many whites who experienced desegregation - white folks generally wanted no part of it.
But my parents did eventually send me to a majority black high school, and I'm the better for it.
Ultimately, the Lord has worked on my heart to where I'm more inclined to find ways to reach out and broaden my horizons than not.
We're not there yet but I see the encounters I have on Twitter and other social media around the world moving us closer - much closer - to fulfilling Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Make it so, Lord, in our lifetimes.
P.S.:
What is your experience with learning how to interact with those who don't look like you?

A Healing Journey - Part III

As I finally got close enough to the community where the cemetery is to tell, I realized the weather would cooperate and I would finally get to do what I needed.
These are the conditions I found at the cemetery, shortly before 1 p.m. Sept. 5 (my parents' graves are in the foreground): So while I must have looked fairly strange to any passersby, I conducted business by getting out my laptop and typing my thoughts.
Here is what I wrote:
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Mom and Dad,

There's hardly a day which goes by where I don't feel you missing from my life.

As I sit here, I hear what sounds like a band practicing, birds chirping, vehicles going somewhere and life just generally continuing around me.

Yet my life has been stuck – emotionally at least – in two moments in time – one outside of a house in Montgomery where you, Dad, were loaded into a an ambulance and rushed to a hospital. You were probably dead when you got there. I can still see the bag of personal effects they gave Mom; your glasses, your false teeth and probably your wallet were included.

The second was the day 11 years about three hours from now (as I write this) when I unlocked the back door to the house I grew up in and made a mad dash through the house to Mom's bedroom, where I saw someone who'd been gone for several days.

Mom and Dad, I miss you, but I cannot continue to live my life in the past, hung on thse moments of loss and grief. I don't think the Lord intended me to stay in this loop forever, but use these days as milestones on a path of healing.

So, I forgive you Dad, for dying less than 18 hours after we had an argument.

I forgive you Mom, for being the last to go; something for which I thought I would never forgive you.

I'm sorry I fought both of you more than I listened to you. I'm sorry I wasn't as easy to raise as I should have been.

As I feel buried emotions rise to the surface, I can't sit here and say that the only time I'll ever need to do this is today. But I wanted to feel Sept. 5, 1998 all over again, so that I could – somehow – move past it, with healing im my heart, and warm, not frigid, memories in my mind.

I am trusting however, that by the grace of God, this will be the first day of the rest of my life, that I can walk away from here knowing I left something behind. Something I didnt't need. Something I couldn't bear to part with but couldn't carry anymore.

I love you and I know that even though you both sometimes had difficultly showing it emotionally, I know by your provision and concern (I can hear Mom saying on times I was late getting home, "I was about to call the State Troopers.") that you cared.

I trust and hope to see you again in person some day. But for now, I have a family waiting on me who loves and wants to see me. I have, by the grace of God, things yet to accomplish here and hope to live the rest of my life at his good pleasure.

Thank you Jesus for allowing me this time to face what I haven't wanted to for so long. May this day be seen from here forward as a blessing, not a curse. In Jesus' name, Amen.

------

Since this time, I've generally been more determined about what I'm doing and I've been more willing to consider some things about the future which were pretty far out there previously.

But God is good, really, and He is leading us through to the future and I intend to be a different human being after this graveside visit in real, personal and tangible ways.

P.S.: So all this said, do you have a situation in your life you need to confront, but have delayed for years? If so, what is it and what do you hope to do about it?

A Healing Journey - Part II

As I pushed on toward Alabama and wondered if the weather would permit me to reach my destination, this sight greeted me on U.S. 82. It serves as a metaphor for what I sensed the Lord was already doing in my heart and would do more of the same if I'd arrived at the cemetery.
By the time I reached the outskirts of Biringham, Ala., rainy conditions left me concerned I would need to bail on my plan and just head to where I would stay the night.
It's been nearly two months since I took this trip, so I needed to squint at the notes I'd taken along the way and try to piece together my thoughts from scribbled words and questionable letters.
I did and recalled more about the soundtrack it seems God himself picked for me along the way, including "Walking in Memphis," "Heaven," Los Lonely Boys and "Son of a Sailor" by Jimmy Buffet.
As I proceeded, I discovered the weather I'd been concerned would keep me from getting to the graveside not only wouldn't be there, it served as a backdrop for some amazing pictures.

A Healing Journey - Part I

Over the last several weeks, I've wondered if it would ever stop raining.
We've experienced a few dry days interspersed with biblical downpours. The hope is these rains will taper off and we'll return to standard weather patterns.
Nearly two months ago – near the beginning of this damp spell – I set off on a journey, driven to find a relief similar to the one we seek for these recent rainy conditions.
For many years, I've struggled to find a way out from under a blanket of memories and patterns left over from my interaction with my deceased parents. To this day, I find myself twisting and shifting to remove myself from a straitjacket of old patterns and habits constructed for relationships which ended – for this lifetime – at a community cemetery in Alabama.
I haven't been sure this cloud would ever lift.
As the 11th anniversary of my mother's death approached, I realized something a few weeks before the day arrived – this year's anniversary would fall exactly on the date and day of the week she died.
Instead of taking the time to grieve, I chose instead to dive headlong into the circumstances we faced immediately afterward, deferring actual mourning to an undetermined date and leaving these old habits clinging to me like a leftover dryer sheet.
So, as the calendar rolled toward Sept. 5, I realized doing something on this day would be a good chance to gain some distance from these remnants of a life now gone.
I decided to go to the place where it all should have stopped – the graveside.
As I got ready to leave for the cemetery from Mississippi, I had this sense one of the things I'd be attempting to stare down is the fear of loss, a fear which can cripple someone and prevent even the most calculated risks.
I put on “The Extremist” by Joe Satriani as I confronted cloudy conditions on the first few minutes of the ride. This music – with its sweeping motions from charging and electrifying to simple and emotive – provided a great soundtrack for the first leg of the trip.
As I proceeded, I thought about whether the clouds I'd encountered along the way would ever break, or if would be just as bleak or worse if I'd even make it to the cemetery at all.