Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas

Don't worry, I'm fine.

It has been 10 months, six weeks and six days since I last had a normal conversation with my dearest friend Harry Scott Shimp. The evening of October 28th, a Thursday. We spoke of love, we spoke of baseball, we spoke of things eternal and trivial. We spoke.

The next day was not real. He couldn't make it out of the car for his chemo/radiation/kill-everything-in-you-just-short-of-killing-you treatment. That Friday morning and afternoon we went to the hospital emergency room where he carried on a polite conversation with the girl helping him. He made her laugh and smile. He made her feel good as he lay dying.

He went into Hospice the next day, then onto the morphine train to oblivia, then passing over to death at about 2:45 in the morning of November 6th, 2011, just a few hours before he would have had the chance to say goodbye to the love inside him, his daughter Katherine. Some say it worked out better this way, that she should remember him as she knew him and not as the weakened shell of a man lying in the bed with black, morphine eyes of death. I feel extremely fortunate to have had my ex-wife and my two daughters with me on the Saturday afternoon before he went. He smiled and called their names. I don't think witnessing him in his weakened state affects their memories of him at all. They loved the man, they will always hold his memory dear and close in their hearts. I miss him so much.

On the Tuesday of that last week I think it was, after a nurse came into the room and asked about his pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, to which he replied "about a 7", she left the room to go get the morphine and he turned to Ross and I and said "I don't have any pain, but they give you morphine here whenever you want it, so if it's all the same to you guys, I'm going to 'drug it up' a little before I check out." Which of course made us smile and laugh a bit, knowing that he was getting one over on the world even up to the very end.

I continued to come visit and have very short 3 or 4 word exchanges with him over the next few days, but he was so drugged up that I don't count those as real conversations.

He was the best friend ever. Ne me quitte pas. Ne me quitte pas.

Well Toto, thanks for sticking by me.

Life/happiness/purpose/etc. isn't about where you are or what you're doing. It's about who you're with. That's it. That's all. That is quite enough.

Seriously? Is it because I'm getting older?

I swear to all of the energies in the universe that I must be going through male menopause or something currently because I am so damn emotional right now that I cannot stop the tears from flowing or my malaise from growing. Almost every morning and just about every night I cry. I cry at things that normal people - anybody in their right mind - would cry at, but I also find that I cry at crazy stuff that NO ONE in their right mind would, or should cry at.

A bit of back story - pardon me if you know me and already know this part - I will try to keep it short, I promise.

I grew up wanting to get out of Kansas. I have stated that for the record MANY times over. I was able to fulfill that desire back in 1999 when I moved to Delaware/Philadelphia, and then on to Hawaii for several years. When I became unemployed in Hawaii, I began to think of Kansas as somewhere I should go to make myself available to my mother and sister if the need should arise. By then my father and older brother had both passed away, leaving me as the only male in our immediate family - not counting my nephews or my own sons. I thought I had it figured out somewhat, well, the beginnings of the probable "answer" at least. Then my unemployment ran out and after burning through any and all money I had "saved" I found myself relying on my mother for financial help again. I HATED the position I was in and the state of the economy and the lack of jobs all over the country added to my problem. Try as I did, I could NOT find work anywhere. Then an old friend of mine reached out to me and asked if I might be interested in working for the small company he was working for. I said YES! I couldn't say "yes" fast enough. That meant that I had to move back east, back to the Philadelphia area, this time New Jersey to be specific. Not that big of a deal, I had moved far distances before. I had moved many thousands of miles when my kids were young (they are all grown now). I had moved with little or no doubts or trepidation. Then I got here and "settled in". I am alone. I look back and realize that for the past 30-some years, I had been sharing my daily life, surroundings and routines (or lack thereof) with a woman. Bob Marley sang "No Woman, No Cry", but he couldn't have meant it literally because no woman equals LOTS of crying. Plus, New Jersey SUCKS. I don't know, maybe I'm just going through this male menopause thing I began this note with. Maybe, if I was 20 or 30 years younger the "No woman, no cry" would have been true… or at least more true than it now appears.

There are a few women who would come live with me if I asked them to. Honestly, I'm not sure that I would be comfortable asking any of them at this point. For some reason (or many…) I don’t know if I am emotionally "stable" enough currently to ask a woman to share my life again. Maybe that is exactly what I need. Maybe not. I always took pride in the fact that I could figure out the answers to these kinds of dilemmas on my own. Now I'm not so sure of myself. I'm 52 on the outside but still feel 23 inside. Am I just continuing the process of kidding myself? Should I try and act my age? Should I start to try, after all of these years, to take into account what other people think of me? I used to take pride in NOT letting what other people think of me color my decision making in the least little bit.

About a month ago I had an "evaluation" of my performance at my new job, (which there has been NO new work at by the way... just sayin'); the nature of the work is installing components in theaters to enable the theater to digitally project 3D movies. The "evaluation" comments/judgment was NOT even close to what I had expected. I had never - in my lifetime - received such biting negative comments. Granted, he did start out by acknowledging the fact that we have had NO WORK by which to gauge my abilities on, but that he had used a couple of "surprise tests" on me. "Surprise" because I had no idea he was scrutinizing my actions and how I performed certain tasks - with NO instruction or desired details communicated to me ahead of time.

I did what I was asked - I got the job done. Through my life - in live television, live “business theater”, etc., I learned how to get the job done” in record time and IN TIME for the broadcast or show. Because I did these “surprise test” tasks in a way different than what he expected, or in a way that HE would have done the tasks differently, he judged me poorly. That is simply NOT FAIR. I know, I know - "life isn’t fair", but c'mon, this was ridiculous.

Anyway, I digress. The purpose of writing these “journal” things was to let out what I am feeling and take a shot at figuring out why I seem to be getting more emotional in my old age. So, why do some silly little commercials start the waterworks? Why do emotionally packed scenes in movies leave my cold-hearted, but a few seconds about a father admiring something his daughter did when she was little make me weep like a baby?

I think that part of it is because of two things - I have two daughters - one who is constantly changing her mind about some pretty important life decisions - she's going back to a guy who has been abusive to her in the past. She says "only that once", but once is once too many in my book. My father raised me to be a gentleman who NEVER would hit or harm a woman in any way, and I have tried to teach my sons similar respect for "the weaker sex" because they ARE! Sorry all of you feminists out there but women are not as strong as men and should NEVER be hit or pushed or shoved or physically harmed in any way. NOTHING will change my mind about that. Now if she has a gun, sure, cold cock the bitch and take the gun away, but other than that, be a gentleman. Period.

My other, younger daughter is about to graduate from college this coming May. I could not be more proud of her. I could also not be more worried for her future as the state of this economy is terrible and it is extremely hard for ANYONE to get a good job these days, even a recent college graduate. I know that I have no control over either of the things my daughters will be facing soon and I learned a long time ago to exert control over that which I have some control over, and release - do not waste time - worrying about that which I have NO control over. It's hard, but no one ever said it would be easy. I am fortunate to have a true angel as the mother of our children; she is also torn and troubled about the futures of our children. She has done an amazing job raising our kids to be the strong, independent people that they are. I also have two sons, and there are definitely some father-son things that I witness that bring on the rush of emotion in me as well, but both of my boys are fairly deep into their respective careers/endeavors right now for me to worry too much about their immediate futures. I call them my boys but they are men, as sure as any man can be called a man. My pride for ALL of my children is immense and I know, deep down, that everything will work out and all will be well.

None of that explains why I cry at silly stupid commercials now when I didn’t just a few short years ago. Maybe I shouldn’t waste any time thinking of “why” and just let me be me. Hmm, that just might work.

See you in another few months or however long it is until I write something here again! Aloha. Mahalo for reading and understanding, even if just a little bit. Get old, have four children, and then you’ll see what I mean.