Count Down

To my son Tommy,

We have twelve days till your mom's surgery.  That is twelve times going to sleep at night and, God willing, twelve mornings waking up.  Your Bwama has started us using the Twelve Days of Christmas song for countdown purposes.  The problem is, no one seemed to agree on the different days.  Sure we all knew there were five rings (though some are gold and others golden) and two turtle doves and such, but what was twelve and is it four calling birds or four colly birds.  So I turned to our ever present source of information and savior from arguments and misunderstandings, the Internet.

Turns out the Internet is far from definitive on the subject, though that doesn't stop people from claiming themselves correct and infallible.  The differences abound and are even more abundant than I thought.  Some have a mother sending gifts, others a true love giving gifts.  Some have twelve drummers drumming while some have twelve lords leaping.  Some had the colly birds and some the calling birds and some had canary birds or colour'd birds.  Just for your information later, and to confuse you more, a colly bird is a small European blackbird that some actually think is a chimney thrush.  I never heard the song with the version using tens cocks a crowing or nine bears a beating but sure enough it exists and not as a parody.  Add in all the parodies, including my favorite Bob River's "Twelve Pains Of Christmas", and the actual lyrics are pretty much based upon your own version of the truth.  Faced with all these variations, spanning the past two or three centuries, who was I supposed to trust?  I turned to one of my most trusted sources, the Muppets!

Though the TV version and the album version differ in cast singing, the lyrics remain consistent through out the years.  Thus the Muppets have solidified for me the true present day lyrics for the songs though knowing the evolution or etymology of the song might win you a Jeopardy contest.  Here is the album version cast and the lyrics used...

John Denver -- "A partridge in a pear tree"
Fozzie Bear -- "Two turtle doves"
Gonzo -- "Three French hens"
Robin the Frog -- "Four calling birds"
Miss Piggy -- "Five gold rings"
Scooter -- "Six geese a-laying"
Lew Zealand -- "Seven swans a-swimming"
Rowlf the Dog -- "Eight maids a-milking"
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker - "Nine ladies dancing"
Statler and Waldorf -- "Ten lords a-leaping"
Beauregard -- "Eleven pipers piping"
Kermit -- "Twelve drummers drumming"

What have we learned here?  We learned that the Internet doesn't always help.  We learned that people sing the same song dozens of different ways.  We learned that your father is willing to accept the word of Rowlf and Kermit and Fozzy over some uppity professor who tells me that I should go back to using a colly bird.  And most importantly, we learned that we are trying to find any way possible to make the next twelve days until your mother's surgery bearable.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

 

Shopping

Tommy son Tommy,

Before I start this little rant, I have to admit my own hypocrisy.  I have braved the Black Friday mad rush before to snag that too good to be true deal and I bet you there will be a time in the future where I.try again.  Sometimes the allure of money supposedly saved is just too great.  How does that make me a hypocrite?  The same way it does for every other Black Friday victim.  One second you are complete and whole and thankful for everything you have, and the next second you need to score the retail crack such as fifty inch TV for three hundred bucks to fill that void in your life.

This year I have a special ire for the commercialism of the season.  I am to the point that I would love to find a corporate fat cat executive or some type of ad agent and slug him right in the mouth.  I probably should point out that violence never solves anything and I usually encourage you to break the Downey train of thought that a swift jab to face will make things better.  But it is how I feel and when my convictions don't necessarily match what I want to teach you, things become difficult.  But I digress. Your mother is limited in what she can do with her medical conditions.  She can't drive and gets tired easily if she does find someone to bring her out.  So often she is stuck watching TV or browsing the Internet and is a prime victim for the advertisers.  If she could get out and buy whatever she wanted, she wouldn't be half as tempted by all these ads.  Don't get me wrong, I understand that your mom loves making Christmas special and wants to find the perfect gifts at the best deals for everyone, but with her upcoming surgery, we do not have the luxury of skewed priorities.  Living this experience makes you realize how despicable Black Friday is and how our priorities can get so out of whack.

If no one in our family gets a gift, but your mom gets the surgery and gets better, then for sure we will feel that Christmas spirit and experience that Christmas miracle.  If we don't have the extra money to buy you that "G.I. Joe with the Kung fu grip" or whatever the hot toy of the season is, then so be it.  Any gifts should be focused on needs rather than wants and focus on utility rather than diversion.  Trust me we have enough stuff, a lesson I learned all too well trying to keep a clean house when your mom spent the majority of October in the hospital.  Perhaps I am just getting older, but I don't want more of anything except more hugs and more health and more you and more snuggle and more mommy and more love.

Another dad blogger was asking what fathers wanted for Christmas.  My answer...

I want to establish a tradition gift for Christmas that my son can get me year in and year out without ever stressing about what he should get me...ever.  Think like always buying your father a tie on Father's Day.  Something simple and cheap, like socks.  He can go with a bag of simple white tube socks if he is pressed or get creative with wild patterns and color if he needs to express himself.  The major point is I want him to say every year, "Dad's easy to buy for.  Where is the sock section?"

I never realized the gift your granddad gave me by making it simple.  Get him a flashlight or an umbrella  and he is all set.  He always said you could never have enough of either.  Growing up I always thought he just wanted to get to the point where you couldn't swing a fly swatter without hitting either.  Speaking of which, fly swatters sometimes made the list of acceptable gifts along with screwdrivers.  Now I realize that is basic simple wish list was a combination of his desire to make it simple on his son and his simple tastes and his desire for nothing but love.

So, when you find yourself caught up in the hype and commercialism of the holiday season, take a step back and realize there is no super savings on a bag of socks for your old man or a flashlight for your granddad.  The men in your life don't need much effort.  Save the extra effort for your mom and your grandmoms and remember, even if you are forty, you can still impress them with a craft made from a paper plate and a hug.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Holiday Sleep In

To my son Tommy,

It is Thanksgiving day and 6:30 and you are still sawing some serious Zzzz's.  Unfortunately my ability to sleep in on a Thursday does not exist.  Not only does my normal week day routine hinder my late slumber aptitude, but because it is a holiday, and I went to bed telling myself how special this day is to convince myself to sleep in, I have been up since about 5:00.   The odd thing is on a normal workday/weekday I would be fighting for every lst minute of sleep.  I guess the moral of the story is never ever hype yourself up to sleep in, as the excitement generated because of a rare guilty pleasure may backfire .  Hey, was that a noise I heard from your room?  Should I take that sleepy dreamtime grunt as a signal that you should be up too?  Misery does love company, but I will be kind and will let you sleep...at least for another twenty minutes, muhahaha.  Happy Turkey Day my son!

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Night Before

To my son Tommy,

Oh what a difference a decade makes.  Today is the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday.  It is also, unbeknownst to most, one the busiest bar nights of the year.  Forget New Years Eve or any of the well publicized amateur nights, this night beats them all.  I don't know if it is simply having a hump day holiday coinciding with a lull between prep work or if it is necessary medicine to deal with the impending onslaught of family, but many booze it up on this particular Wednesday every year.  Consequently, ten years ago I would have been tending bar or boozing, but most likely working as tips hit higher levels with that special sense of holiday cheer.

Today, I am at work, finishing end of the month closing, and itching to bet the weather home.  I no longer look forward to the festivities of "Turkey Eve" or at least not the usual festivities of my youth.  I just want to rush home to be with your mom and you and begin my retreat into my contemplative state of thankfulness just a tad bit earlier.  Now if the AP department will finish up...I am all set to head home for some snuggles as we work out the plan for our family obligations tomorrow.  Whatever plan we come up with, be it big family or small, be it big meal opportunities or just some turkey broth with your mommy and us, I look forward to spending an entire day filled with love.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Kinder Bars

To my son Tommy,

When I lived overseas as an army brat in a younger life, I used to eat a certain chocolate bar.  It was mostly milk surrounded by just a little chocolate.  It depended on which country I was living in but the name was either Kinder Schokolade or Kinder Cioccolato and for the extra creamy type there was Kinder Riegel.  They were cheap over there (or at least to the best of my memory) and they seemed to be everywhere and were a good alternative to the omnipresent Toblerone.

One of my favorite stores in the immediate area is Old World Deli and Bakery.  Actually it is up in the Randallstown area by your grandmother's house.  Because it carries so many products from the Europe that were common place as I grew up,  I often shop there for simple nostalgia purposes.  When you combine this store, and my desire to pass on things from my life and my youth to you, and an occasional sense of desperation when it comes to your eating habits, you end up with a four year old with an expensive habit.

One day while buying some weisswurst for you grandmom at the Old World, I spied these confections from my youth.  The price was a bit more than I remembered but at the time no price was too expensive if I could find something (anything) you would eat.  Who knew you would be hooked.

Now every two or three weeks, we stop by and pick up refills.  Mostly they are saved for you school lunch, but occasionally you get a treat (aka bribe) if you eat your dinner well.  I never knew (until recently) they were made by the Italian company Ferrero which also makes two of my other favorites, Ferrero Rocher and Nutella.  I guess being made in Italy, that is why I remember the Kinder bars being cheaper and they are a bit more expensive in the U.S. nowadays.  Oh well, it is a bond between father and son and you are worth every extra penny it costs.  But remember, I like cheaper chocolates too, like Hershey kisses, they are made only a state away!

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

P.S. Picture is blatantly borrowed from the Ferrero site

Blustery Cold

To my son Tommy,

I suppose I do my fair share of complaining in these letters to you.  I would call it more reporting the situation because I don't think I have a "woe is us" approach, but I guess some might consider it complaining.  But I remain thankful for the gifts we have and am constantly reminded it could be worse.  Yesterday I was reminded how bad it could be.

After the 12:15 Mass, I was selling raffle tickets for the St Agnes Men's Club shopping spree giveaway.  With the windchill yesterday, I am pretty sure it was approaching absolute zero.  The wind was cutting through my clothes no matter how well layered they were.  My kibbles and bits were trying to crawl back inside like a turtle sheltering in his shell in order to seek any kind of warmth.  For thirty minutes I experienced a cold that was reminiscent of doing naked snow angels during the drunken days of my youth.

My mind began to wander and began to consider those who have no home, specifically those that are often outdoors.  I had just thirty minutes of being cold but I was about to return to the warmth of my home.  What if there were no escaping the winds and frigid air?  What if I had no home to return to?  What if the only hope for warmth and relief from this blustery cold weather relied solely on the generosity of strangers and if the shelters were already filled to their max?

Our plights in this world are not trivial when you talk about such thing as your mom's medical conditions and such, but imagine how much more we would have to endure if we didn't have the gifts in our life that we do have.  Remember, always be thankful for what you have and be mindful and compassionate to those who go without.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Altar Groupie

To my son Tommy,

At Mass today, your cousin Emma was being an alter server.  Your cousin has a friend, also named Emma, that you are enamored with and she was serving as well.  So here you are in the middle of Mass, waving at the alter like a crazed fan at a rock concert.  I got you to stop, a couple times.  It is hard being stern when inside you are laughing pretty hard.  I guess if you are going to be a groupie, you certainly could do worse. At least you are no longer calling the altar servers orphans as you have in the past during your Annie phase.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Culture

To my son Tommy,

You are running around the house singing the tune from Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King.  Most people would recognize the tune but you have the unfortunate fate of having a father who actually has a decent classical music knowledge repertoire.  When I asked you where you heard that, you credited Little Einsteins.  It is actually was fitting tune for you to be singing because it invokes a mischievous nature.  You had setup a couple stools in what you called "a maze" but what your mom recognized as a daredevil course where you jump off one on to another.  Boys will be boys, in my opinion and I couldn't really fault you.  Your mom went up to shower and you looked at me and asked if you could continue.  Dads will be dads, so I said yes until your mom comes down then you have to stop immediately.  I figured you wouldn't hurt yourself and I'd be there if you did and sometimes four year olds have to be daredevils and make mistakes to learn.  So there you were singing the classical tune and stepping from stool to stool and sometimes jumping over imaginary lava streams as you avoided the Norwegian trolls.  Your mom  started coming down but that better at the top of the steps and reversed her direction.  You say out loud, "oh good mommy isn't coming down yet, I can still jump."  When your mom, still upstairs, objected to that logic, your argument back was, "It's okay.  Daddy said so!"  I am so busted!  Thanks.  There are still so many subtleties left to teach you in this world.  At least classical music culture isn't one of them.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

What You Don't Want To Hear

To my son Tommy,

You and I brush our teeth together in the morning.  Usually you go first with me doing most f the scrubbing for you and then you doing a couple scrubs by yourself so you slowly get the hang of it.  Then as you are finishing up, I start.  Usually you stick around and watch, getting pointers or learning from my technique.

Today, as I had a mouthful of paste and brush which had worked itself to an unusually large foam amount, you said, "Uh oh, gotta go poopie!"  Not what. I wanted to hear at 7:30 in the morning.  Before I could clear my mouth and object and suggest you use the upstairs bathroom, your pants were down and you were on the pot.  The smell that followed cut through the mint of the toothpaste like a knife through butter.  We may have to work on and instill a healthy level of modesty and privacy and respect for other people's nasal cavaties with regards to your bathroom etiquette.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Mind Like A Steel Trap

To my son Tommy,

I often say that I have a mind like a steel trap and quickly add the old joke "rusty and illegal in 37 states."  I have a good memory but I am put to shame by your ability to latch on an idea or a promise and follow through.  

Last night your bedtime came in the middle of a Shrek movie.  You begged to stay up and finish but your parents stood firm on bedtime.  We promised you could continue watching it today.  I figured ten hours of sleep would make you forget.  Nope.  You woke up and when we started putting on your normal shows this morning, you quickly reminded us that you had the rest of the movie to watch.

Right now, you are talking about some toy at your Bwama's house that both you and your cousin Ryan want (or wanted) to play with.  Better than even odds that when you play tomorrow at your Grandmom's house that the toy in question will be the first you go for.  Despite my advice that you should be kind to your cousin and work it out with Ryan, you are probably planning some elaborate plan to guarantee your play time.  Unfortunately for you, this tendency runs in the genetic make up and I bet your cousin Ryan is planning some devious counter initiative for the same toy.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Every Tool Has A Use

To my son Tommy,

I have somehow managed to categorize and compartmentalize my social presence.  With the amount of competing social medias online, I suppose it was only a matter of time.  It is the same theory as owning a bunch of cordless phones and their bases.  We have four.  You wouldn't line them all up in the same room.  Instead you spread them out, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and (with our family and your mom's crohn's disease) one in the john.  Each phone can do the same thing but we have spread their duties to cover more area in our house and make life easier for us.  Somehow your mom can end up with three or four phones in one place, but for the most part each one has a specific location for a specific purpose.

This is similar to what my online life has become.  I use Blogger, of course, to write you these letters.  I use Facebook to follow family and friends.  I use LinkedIn for work updates and professional stuff.  I use Google+ profile but I haven't found it's niche use yet.  I kind of think of it like a backup quarterback for Facebook.  There are other tools out there that I use (like Yelp to look up restaurants when I can find an honest review and we have spare money to go out) or have used (Is myspace still around?) for various things and to various degrees and there are yet others I haven't started using but the most interesting tool as of late is Twitter.

I find myself using Twitter for news and increasingly to follow along with local issues and follow along with local news.  They recently had an award ceremony for local tweeters and bloggers and such called the Mobbies.  When the results were posted, I ended up with a treasure trove of people to follow on Twitter.  I never thought an online tool would increase how connected I can feel to my city, yet here I am hanging on tweets of bearded local reporters and watchdog agitators.  It feels good to be at least informed if not enlightened even if it is a bit of escapism from current struggles.

I wonder, when you read this, if these names of the sites and tools will have lasted or if you will have to go looking for them in a history book or wiki or whatever the tool du jour is.  I also wonder how many people are compartmentalizing their online life like me or if this is just some sort of geekly OCD.  If you find yourself with lots of social media tools (or lots of cordless phones in the house for that matter) remember to diversify and not throw all your eggs in one basket.  It may actually seem counter intuitive that you can simplify your life using multiple tools for specific purposes when each and any of the tools could probably handle and satisfy all areas.  Logic would normally suggest, if that is the case, to simplify by only picking one tool.  But in this ever changing age, where tools come and go and depend on the success of their IPO, being well versed in all your options gives you some peace of mind.  It also spreads the burden and allows you to choose which online area of your life you want to spend time.  One of the best things about spreading out your activities among sites, you feel less guilty about taking a break from one or all and you feel less overwhelmed when you decide to resume.  And always remember, it goes without saying too often, that these are just tools to life and the majority of your time should be spent outside of these tools, living real life with real people in real interactions.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Too Many Choices

To my son Tommy,

I was listening to NPR the other day and they had snippets from an interview with TED Talker Barry Schwartz on the "Paradox of Choice".  He talked about how we believe that the more choices we have the better off we are.  More choices gives us the illusion of freedom.  Then he mentioned that there were at least 175 different salad dressings he could buy at the grocery store.  He brought in the science and showed that people actually aren't more happy with all these choices because it triggers a mental or emotional paralysis.  He then goes on to tell us a funny story about jeans shopping and expectations and how studies show we are the most happy when we have about eight choices.  (You can read it all here if you like or watch it here if you don't like reading, if of course these links work in the decades to follow when you read these letters.)

Now I think Mr. Schwartz makes some interesting points but I think he misses some obvious things.  Maybe he has them in the book he wrote but I am too paralyzed to choose to buy his book from the so many book choices out there to buy and spend my time on.  Which kind of brings me to my point.  Choice has always been there.  Maybe in the past there weren't a couple dozen types of jeans or two hundred seventy five cereals, but there has been one category filled with choice since antiquity, what to read.  Even walking in one of the more underfunded libraries of the world and you end up with at least one thousand choices of what to read.  How did I read anything and even find enjoyment with my choice without raising my expectations too high that I would never enjoy another book again?  I admit when I was young that what book to pick was overwhelming, but there was help.  Librarians, teachers, parents, and friends, all suggested what I should read or in some cases told me what I had to read.  They would help me classify and quantify and whittle down my choices to a very manageable few.  Some suggestions were good and some were bad and that certainly changed who I chose to give me suggestions.  But I never felt paralyzed by the amount of choice because I had help to discover what I liked and what I didn't.

The same could be said for many an industry back in the day.  When my mother or grandmother bought me shoes as a child, there was a guy measuring my feet and making suggestions.  He was knowledgeable in his product and professional and helped us past the multitude of selections available.  He even had made relationships with his customers so he knew what they wanted and how they wanted it and would skip over any choices that weren't well suited.  The same could be said for the grocer to the hardware store clerk to the mechanic to the barber or just about any salesman of the day.  Every salesman was like a bartender in a local bar where you walk in and they know your name and what you drink.  Even the video store clerks (when there were video stores) would hold out selections for me that they think I would like.  Those days have seen to have past us by.

Now we get our suggestions from computers and algorithms and campaign ads.  You walk into a store and it is all "help yourself."  You are left to roam the aisle and look at 175 salad dressings and guess which one would suit you all on our own.  It isn't the amount of choices that paralyze a person, it is being alone in making that choice.  We need help.  We need each other.  We need that reliable dependable trustworthy guy to say, "Hey Leo! Nice to see you again.  These are the eight I think that will work best for you.  Let's go over the ups and downs of each!"  We need more people to be professional and knowledgeable and to take pride in their jobs.  Unfortunately there is more profit in paying minimum wage to people to scan you out after you have wandered through the aisles of multitude than to pay them a decent wage to actually help their customer.  With self scan checkouts, they don't even have to pay the cashier.  The big corporations have even created a stigma for those of us who prefer help through their business model.  By under-staffing and under-training they are basically making you feel stupid that you need help deciding which salad dressing goes best with a side salad served with steaks.  Does too many choices give you the illusion of freedom while in fact paralyzing you?  Perhaps, but the solution does not lie in eliminating those choices. It lies within people leaning on other people to help navigate this great big world.  If we focus on helping each other to maximize each others quality of life instead of our own personal profit, then we can make the best choice of all which is allowing ourselves to truly be happy.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Pharmacy

To my son Tommy,

I believe there hasn't been three days in a row in the past month or so that I haven't had occasion to visit CVS for one of our family members.  I joked with your mom that if CVS runs out of anything, they will start sending patients to our house.  

Today I was not only picking up for your mom but for myself as well.  The lady at the pharmacy couldn't find my prescription.  Now in the past month or two I have seen many an irate customer at this store.  When people are sick their tempers are short.  But I dare say that the workers behind the counter never deserved the amount of grief that was aimed at them.  I was determined not to be one of those grumpy customers.  So I politely, but persistently, worked with them till they could find my prescription.  Turns out it was hard to find because the company had my ordinal IV keyed in on my last name and that throws off their system.  By the time we got it all straightened out, me and a couple of the employees were laughing about dynasties and thirds and fourth.  The lady behind the register thanked me for being nice and understanding.  As I walked out I wished them well and I told them I'd probably see them in a couple days the way things have been going, a joke I am not sure they understood.

Remember, in every situation, no matter the frustration level or who is at fault or how pissy you might be feeling, you are obliged to do your best to be kind to all you come across.  If you try your hardest to follow this rule, not only do you chance making someone else's day that much more pleasant, you just might live a happier life.  Kill them with kindness!

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Our Remembering Selves

To my son Tommy,

Here is another trick to having a happy marriage and a happy life.  Go back through your pictures often! Pull out the picture albums or go through your flickr account or view slideshows and old home movies.  These moments that are captured are usually filled with smiles and good memories.  Somehow the struggles from the time the picture was taken have almost completely vanished from our remembering self.  So when life gets tough we can invoke our remembering self to trump our current experiencing self.

I stumbled upon the concept of the remembering self versus the experiencing self two or three years ago.  Your mother was doing a paper on a book for a prerequisite English course for nursing school.  She was faced with a question like "If you could live one full year with a perfect life but at the end of the year you wouldn't remember anything, would you?"  She and I were talking about her required reading and her report and the concepts contained within the question.  I was struggling explaining my understanding when I suddenly remembered that Daniel Kahneman, a behavioral economist and someone who I had read much about his ideas and respected, had given a TED talk about the same idea.  This is before TED talks were ultra popular and at a time that not everyone was invited to do a TED talk.  So I pulled this out to show your mom and learned a few things myself.

Anyway the basic idea is that the remembering self decides how you perceive any events in the past.  Imagine you are at the most beautiful concerto and everything is perfect except at the last moment before the end the violinist misses a note and sends out a horrible screeching note.  It no longer matters that you had over 99% of an enjoyable experience.  It has been tainted and almost the only thing you can remember is how bad that note was.  Kahneman went on, as behavioral economist will, to talk about what happens if the bad note came in the beginning or the end and how this effects peoples perceptions of the experience.  If I remember correctly, it continued on relating this how this alters people buying experience and how it makes a repeat customer.  He is after all an economist, but his lesson transcends all science and sociology.

As for me, I have figured out how to use this knowledge in just every day life.  Just take some time out of every week's schedule to look at those pictures from your past.  You don't need to be depressed to do it, and I would even suggest that you don't do it while depressed.  If you were to, you chance comparing your current experience to what will seem like a more perfect, more happier time, and that is not what we are after.  Instead make it almost routine, when you are in good spirits or at least on even keel, to spend time going down memory lane and fondly remembering your past when you are in a good mood.  Look at your wedding pics and let the love you felt that day come over you like a warm blanket renewing your feelings.  Look at all those happy moments, from baptisms to birthdays and all the events in between and let it re-energize the positive emotions in your life.  Then come back to the present and look at those in your life with new eyes re-inspired by the memories of such love experienced.  Trust me, it works and it is well worth the time.

Sincerely with love from you dad,
Leo

Visit

To my son Tommy,

Your mom was determined to resume our weekly Saturday visits to the Downey household.  We had missed plenty of time with all the recent medical and, not only do we want to resume some normalcy in our routine, we truly do enjoy spending time with your grandparents and great grandparents.  Unfortunately you were wiped out and you can see by the picture how you spent your visit.  The funny thing is it doesn't matter.  It doesn't make a bit of difference if you were wide awake and running around and entertaining or if you were sacked out the entire time.  Your grandparents and your great grandparents enjoy your company no matter what!  Remember that when you are all grown up with your own kids and are deciding to come visit us or not.  If it comes to your mind that you would just sit around and do nothing and perhaps that is not worth the trip, immediately put that thought out of your mind.  With family, you don't need to entertain.  Just being together is enough!

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

End In Sight

To my son Tommy,

When you are struggling through with anything in life, it helps immensely if you have an end in sight.  A date on the calendar for an anticipated resolution can do wonders for your attitude.  Today we got the date of December 12th for your mom's bowel resection surgery that hopefully will give her some relief from her present woes.  It isn't much of a change in what we expected to wait though it did shave off a couple weeks on the original estimate.  For the most part you wouldn't think your mom shouldn't be happy with "By the way you have to stay on clear liquids and can't eat for almost another month"  but just having a date, an end, a light at the end of the tunnel gives us all such joy and hope!  Of course, I remember what Mr. Murphy and his laws warned about the light at the end of a tunnel... it may be the headlamp of the oncoming train.  Here's hoping Mr.Murphy wasn't an optimist.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Cheese On Your Mac

To my son Tommy,

Up until this point, when you said you ate mac and cheese, you really just ate plain macaroni.  Sauce was a big no no, be it tomato sauce or cheese sauce or even just butter.  Every pasta had to be just plain with salt being the only acceptable additive. Happily I can report tonight that you devoured some mac and cheese complete with the cheese sauce!  You put up the normal resistance for the green beans and chicken but even those seemed to go down with less of a fight though you do know how to push your mommy's buttons when you eat.  Your food triumph was a pleasant aside especially because in the past month and a half we have had little to celebrate.  Of course I think your mom was as jealous as she was proud as she sipped on her soup broth.  You are now on your second helping of mac and cheese!

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Struggle Through

To my son Tommy,

The surgeon who is scheduled to do your mom's bowel resection (which we hope will solve pretty much all the current medical stuff) thinks it is wise to enlist a second surgeon, specifically a plastic surgeon, to make sure everything is closed up properly.  We had problems with this before about six years ago and that was the reason we said you were born in a "womb with a view" which is a story for another time.  So we agree we need the extra help to avoid complications but the catch is this means the surgery will be put off until we can get insurance approval for the additional help.   So our choices are to hurry the surgery now and chance something going wrong with the closure and risk another hernia or wound vacuum situation, or to wait for the insurance and suffer through the current situation. When we step back out of our situation from a more objective view, the obvious thing to do is wait and do it right.  But when you are consumed in the present circumstances, when you were wondering how we can continue on for the two weeks to the early surgery date and now realize that time is at least now quadrupled, when you are your mommy and haven't eaten anything but clear liquids for about four weeks, it makes it difficult not to take the quicker option.  

Remember son, often in life you have to suffer through now to achieve a better result or situation in the future.  When you are reaping the rewards in the future, your sacrifice will seem negligible.  When you think about the bigger picture, life is a struggle which we suffer through now in hopes of achieving our ultimate goal of getting to heaven.  So what is a couple more weeks, right?  Your mom is sucking on some new broth right now thinking, "Easy for you to say."  Here is hoping that insurance and the powers that be fast track our approval!

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Hot Mess

To my son Tommy,

Just in case my letters and musings make you think that we are past the recent struggles of life, this letter is to confirm the exact opposite.  Not only are we dealing with your mom's medical stuff and all the normal stuff of life like work and chores and survival, we have added a cold or flu on top.  First it started with me and now has spread to you.  I hope it doesn't get to your mom to complicate her life more than it already is.  The Downeys are a hot mess.  Now we are off to your doctor's office to maybe solve one part of the juggling act we call life.  I remember recently praying for the grace and ability to handle everything going on in our lives right now.  I didn't think He would try to prove it to me by giving us even more to handle.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Means And Ends

To my son Tommy,

In attempt to break from the norm, which includes basic medical posts and situation reports, I will again try to delve into the depths of the philosophical.  Perhaps using my mind for some thinking on a greater than normal magnitude will clear the cobwebs induced by the cold remedies I am taking.  At the least it will be a welcomed diversion and might be quite entertaining to read when I am not hopped up on NyQuil or Sudafed.

Would you murder one innocent person to save one million people?
Would you murder one innocent person to save just one other person?
Would you murder one innocent person to save five people?
Would you murder 200,001 people to save 378,543 people?

If you ever start exploring questions like these, you are exploring the question if ends justify the means.  You are exploring if you are willing to do something inherently bad for a good result.  You are also exploring if you are willing to forgive someone for the evils they did if the result is sufficiently good.

In my limited human capacity, I occasionally believe there are times when the end results justify the means, but I temper that with the end results don't excuse the means.  This means if I choose to do something wrong for a greater good, I must also be willing to accept the consequences and realities of that choice.  In my thinking, the ends don't necessarily eliminate the punishment for my actions.

Say for example that I am a police officer.  I have the chance to get a very bad guy off the streets and make the world a safer place.  But in order to accomplish this, I have to trample over some laws and some of his rights.  Would you do it?  It almost seems like a no brainer?  But if I chose to do it, I should also be willing to lose my job and face a prison sentence myself.  If the ends are so great that I am willing to compromise my own moral compass than I should be willing to accept any results of my actions.  Many use the ends vs means argument to free themselves from repercussions.  Though end result might get you more mercy, you can't rely on this.  You have to be willing to accept the full punishment for any wrongful action regardless if the results were good or not.

Life isn't easy and we are faced with difficult choices day in and day out.  We fill our lives with little white lies and other harmless transgressions.  We temper our actions with rationalizations and reasons that invoke results "for the greater good" or future penances.  It begins us down that proverbial slippery slope.  The actions begin small but will get bigger and so will the questions and so will the grey area.

What man among us would fault someone for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family?  Yet do we condone this action because of the dire need or because he stole only a little?  If he stole a priceless diamond to feed his family for years, do we apply the same leniency?  And what of the man who refused to steal even though he and his family were also starving?  Do we look better or worse upon such a man?  And where do we hold accountable the rich man who has plenty?

It is easy to see how the questions get murkier every time you decide to justify a bad action with a good result.  Once again, I don't have any answers for you.  Try your hardest and consider all things.  You will get this wrong from time to time, as all men do.  Do not shirk from the consequences of your actions nor hide behind the results.  Luckily our transgressions amount to a drop in the ocean that is the infinite grace and forgiveness of God which when sought by the penitent man will truly free us from ourselves.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Manners

To my son Tommy,

You may think no one is noticing, but I hear and see it.  There has been at least dozen times in the past three days that you have said "yes ma'am" or "yes sir" totally on your own and unprompted.  It makes my heart soar to know you learned this behavior from your old man.  You have joined a long list of gentlemen that say sir and ma'am.  Keep up the good work.  Now, if we could only get a little less sass at dinner time.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Medieval Times

To my son Tommy,

We headed out to Medieval Times dinner and tournament to celebrate your cousin Ryan's birthday.  What started out as a great time quickly turned scary.

You and I are fighting the beginning of possible colds and I seriously debated scrapping the whole trip.  No fevers or anything just some nasal congestion.  So I decided we could suck it up and head out and that a minor sniffle wouldn't keep us from some fun.  In hindsight, my idea to cowboy up was more machismo than common sense.

We got there and were having a great time.  We were armed with an allergy free sandwich and thing of pasta.  We had your epi-pen (thanks to Aunt Deb bringing it down) in case you tried any new foods or came in contact with any allergy foods.  I didn't plan for the real culprit of the night.

The show started around 4:30 One second you were enthralled and engaged and sitting right next to me and yelling "HUZZAH!" with me.  Everyone else was just cheering normally so it was special that you and I were yelling a more theme appropriate cheer.  We were about an hour in to the show and then in a matter of seconds you went to lethargic, disengaged, and sleepy.  I immediately knew something wasn't right.  I tried to ascertain if you had ingested anything you shouldn't have and had my epi pen at the ready.  You scratched your throat and almost received an immediate medical injection.  Instead I nearly bulldozed over your Pop-pop as I had to get you into better light.  We headed out to the lobby.

In the lobby I noticed you didn't have the hives or swelling normally associated with eating food.  Plus we didn't have any food that you were allergic to and you didn't eat anything that I didn't bring.  An employee came by and asked us if we were alright.  I asked for a glass of water.  When he brought it back he asked if you had asthma and suggested the horses might have been a factor.  Duh, asthma.  Why didn't I think of that.  Horse dander and all the smoke and fog machines, why didn't it dawn on me?  Throw in the fact that you played outside in the cold air earlier and that is like a perfect storm for asthma.  Well now that you were out of the situation, things would get better right?

Since I am just a dad, I have two levels of medical care.  The "aww he's alright, shake it off boy" level and the "off to the hospital we go" level.  There really isn't much in between, either we do nothing or over react.  So I called your mom to let her know and to find out what to do as if she had some mommy super power to get a feeling of what is going on over a phone call.  After the phone call which just reassured me that I should use my own judgement, as long as it wasn't the unfair judgement that mommies everywhere can tell how sick their child is over the phone, we decided to wait it out in the lobby for a bit.  We hoped we could just wait it out till everyone came out and then head home.  Every time I decided it was time to go, you begged to wait. This lasted till about 6:15 when you and I both decided things were no longer getting better and it was time to go.

We hurried home fairly fast, just slow enough not to get in a car accident on the way but definitely with some speed.  Your mom had the nebulizer treatment readied for you and we hit you with some benadryl and a mask treatment and checked your oxygen levels and temp.  It turns out that I really would have been over-reacting if I had followed my instinct to take an early turn on the way home and head to the emergency room.  I guess I reacted with the appropriate amount of effort by getting you to your mommy.

Your mommy and I have a scary future with regards to raising you.  Between your food allergies and your asthma and everything else that is normal for little boys, we have plenty to worry about.  I pray I will be granted the necessary grace to know when and how to act with every medical problem that arises.  Right now I think I am going to ground and quarantine you and I, even from Mass tomorrow, just to make sure we get some rest and recovery.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Hold Your Hand

To my son Tommy,

Last night, as we went up to bed, you asked your mom if she would come up and sing.  Since all the medical stuff with your mom, since she has been home, we usually have been doing our singing downstairs and then you and I head up to get you in bed.  It is not quite back to normal but better than having to sing over the phone or facetime with your mom in the hospital.  Lately, however, your mom has been braving the steps and been feeling a bit stronger.  So when you asked her last night, she agreed.  Then you added what could be one of the most heartfelt darn near cutest thing a kid can say, "Don't worry mommy.  I will hold your hand so you won't fall as you go up the steps."  Tommy my boy, you are such an uplifting pure innocent force in all of our lives.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Five In The Morning

To my son Tommy,

Why does worry seem to culminate in the wee hours of the morning when a person is supposed to be sleeping?  What is it about the dream world or the unconscious mind that can wake a grown man from slumber and refuse him re-entry?  I have fought to get back to sleep for the past three hours and I hope by expressing myself here in a letter to you I can clear my mind.  Perhaps then I can seize the few precious minutes of slumber left in the morning.

You seem to be tossing and turning yourself.  We still have the sound monitors in your room and I am pretty sure you have changed positions and wrestled around no less than a dozen times since I have been awake.  Occasionally, you have mumbled something that must make perfect sense in your dream but even when I hear it clearly the meaning eludes me.  At least you are in that dream state where your mind processes and flushes all the superfluous fragments left over thus restoring it to a clean slate.  It makes me jealous because my fragments keep coming back like razor sharp boomerangs.

Your mother is up too, or at least she was when I went down.  I swore I heard one of her alarms on her phone go off but perhaps that was in my head and I think I was already semi-awake at that point so I can't blame that for waking me.  Your mom is sleeping downstairs because it is easier with her medical situation.  She must be in and out of sleep because the TV is still running with some horrible infomercial.  I would go down to turn it off for her, but that would just startle her awake.  Plus she probably needs the light from the TV as she wakes through the night for various medical things.

As for me, I am still being barraged by thought after thought.  My mind travels freely from work, to family, to God, to neighbor, to Crohn's, to payroll systems, to volunteering, to prayer, to you, to each of your grandparents, to Mrs. Gloria next door who was taken in an ambulance today, to friends I haven't seen in years, to pending surgeries, to how to calculate the overtime in the new payroll system at work, to sin, to life, to politics, to crime, to retirement savings, to love, and everything in between.  As you can see there is no rhyme or reason and my brain is currently the definition of non-sequitur.  I have tried most every technique I know to get back to sleep tonight, except for pharmaceuticals.  There is just over an hour left before you wake for school so it is almost pointless at this point.  Saying the Rosary is usually my final goto in order to find peace and calm so I can sleep.  No joy.

I suppose all these thoughts and worries are being pushed to the night because they might totally debilitate me throughout the day.  Getting a couple hours sleep somehow triggers this thought parade.  I wish it would just come at me in some weird deep R.E.M. state dream that I could laugh about or try to figure out in the morning,  instead, quite rudely, it decides to wake me and keep me awake.  I wish I had advice on how to deal with this for when you run into it when you're a dad.  Instead I just offer this example so you know that it happens to the best of us.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

When The Going Gets Tough

To my son Tommy,

It occurred to me that it might seem odd to you that I was talking about volunteering while everything medical is going on with your mom.  Let me be clear, your mother's health takes precedence over any volunteer work.  Your mother's health takes precedence over my job even.  Though my first priorities have changed, in times of struggle, you don't stop doing, especially good things, if you are capable.

You don't stop taking care of yourself  because of hard times.  You don't stop taking care of your home and family because of adversity.  You don't stop paying bills if you can afford.  You don't stop working if you can avoid it.  You don't have to limit your activities to mere survival.  You can still go to church.  You can still volunteer.  You can still recycle.  You can still enjoy a stroll.  You can still laugh without feeling guilty.

Life is struggle.  If we shutdown every time struggle came at us, nothing ever in this world would be accomplished.  The key here is prioritizing.  Perhaps that load of laundry can wait till later.  Perhaps you can give yourself an extra week with the sheets on the bed for a slight break.  Your head is probably swimming and it might not know if you are coming or going.  So you have to rely on your heart and your gut.

There are certain times in your life when it is okay to let everything else shutdown.  You will feel it in your heart when those moments come.  Deep inside you will know if you should be there by the side of their hospital bed at all times rather than volunteering at a soup kitchen or something.  If death strikes a family, all the other goings on in the world take a back seat as you flock to the comfort your family and friends and lean on those same people for your own comfort.  Perhaps later you can continue the rest of the stuff but at that point you just need to grieve and be there for each other.

It really is a balancing act where there seem to be no universal right answer.  There will be times where your clouded head will somehow override the choice by your pure heart and you end up with the wrong answer.  Often we realize that with hindsight from a clearer mind.  Other times we have to be told by someone else that it is time to go back to what really matters and leave the rest for later.  Last night, for me, that someone else was your Bwama and as I was using my volunteerism for escapism and was ready to go on to the fifth computer, she pointed out that the computers will be here tomorrow and the next day and it was time to get home to my wife.  It is a tricky balancing act that everyone is bound to screw up in one form or another, but, God willing, we will get it right more often than we will get it wrong.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Volunteering My Inner Geek

To my son Tommy,

Your Grandmother Eileen has to be one of the craftiest organizers on this earth.  She has some how banded together four geeks from the parish into a volunteer tech crew for your school.  With any loose confederation, it takes a powerful and charismatic leader to keep the group together.  Matt and Larry came in voluntarily, but your Uncle Chris and I were drafted because we would never say no to our mother-in-law.  I don't know how anyone could ever say no to her.  She continues to keep us going and focused.  From time to time it is probably like herding water, but somehow she manages.

Even though I was shanghaied, I really do enjoy volunteering my geek powers.  A couple hours last night and hopefully a couple more kids will have the advantages of the new Smart Boards.  Engaging kids through technology and exciting them to learn is a cause close to my heart.  It is the exact reason that you are so adept at the iPad and computer at such a young age.  Of course as you get older and learn from your older cousins, it gets tougher and tougher to keep you excited about ABCMouse and Sid the Science Kid and other education apps.  But, somehow, I can still steer you away from Power Ranger and Minion games and on to math and science and reading apps.  Of course, I can always fall back on my superior computer skills and just block apps and websites and such, at least for the time being.  That fall back should last till about second grade when you will somehow surpass me and reprogram the entire internet and I will be coming to you for access to the digital world!

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Best Tommy You Can Be

To my son Tommy,

On the car ride home, after picking you up at your grandmom's house, you were singing your heart out.  I thought to myself, "I am making a potential pop star!" and started dreaming about your future fame and fortune.  Just before I broke into my own version of Dr. Hook's "Cover of the Rolling Stone" or Dire Straits "Money For Nothing", I realized I am not making a pop star.  I am not making you into anything.  My job is not to pick your future career or make you into something but to give you every opportunity to be the best Tommy you can be.  You are off to a great start.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

The Big Pill Box

To my son Tommy,

Today I saw marriage through so many eyes and perspectives.

It started with Mass today where a couple renewed their vows and received a blessing from the priest on their 50th anniversary.  What a great testimony!  Add to that being able to look down the row and see my parents and your mommy's parents sitting right there together.  Great examples of marriage surrounded me and you would think I would get the idea through my thick head right away.  Not a chance.

The day continued with me and your mother working on our communication and marriage skills.  If you fail to do something successfully, does that count as working on it?  I think so, if you learn from the experience.  Your mother was feeling frustrated with not being able to help with some tasks we needed to get done.  And her good intentions to try to assist were making me feel micro managed and a bit unappreciated.  After all I had accomplished most everything I had to for the past week or so and you somehow survived.  With a little soul searching and a big reminder from your Grandpa Leo that this is what marriage is all about, I realized I was being selfish and stupid.  Your Grandpa Leo also reminded me that most marriage disputes end with the man realizing this, or they never end.  You can either be right or married.

Later, after the chores were done, we as a family hit a couple drugstores to get the rest of your mom's script and find the perfect pill box to make it easy for your mom to take her medicines properly.  As your mom said, she needed a box you could play monopoly with.  Nothing says love like perusing the medical aid device sections of pharmacies.  Though men logic would have just made your mom make do with a smaller version of the pill box and eliminate the extra store, I had learned a few things since this morning.  Our quest for the large pillbox now meant much more than an extra trip to another store.

Then I came home and decided to peruse the social media outlets online.  A well respected friend of mine posted a line saying that "Marriage isn't for me either" with a link to a blog.  At first it worried me but then I read the blog post associated with the shared link.  I was greeted with a well written post that was summed up nicely in the last sentence which read, "Truly, love and marriage isn’t for you. It’s for others."

Some would say it is coincidence, some would say I am just inferring meaning from random generalizations (like reading a horoscope or fortune cookie) but it sure seems to me Someone out there is trying to get the message through to me.  Life is not about self; Love is not about self.  The faster you realize that, the better off you will be.  And even if you had realized it before, sometimes we can always use a reminder.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Saga Changes Scenery Again

To my son Tommy,

Your mom came home from the hospital today.  This doesn't mean everything is just hunky dory quite yet.  It just means that they aren't keeping her in the hospital anymore.  Instead we have to do everything that they were doing in the hospital at home.  It probably has to do more with money and insurance than health.  The saga continues it just changed scenery and supporting cast.  Thank goodness the home health care nurses are nice.  They really do make it easier.  I think after a couple more lessons on TPN (mommy's nutrition for the past week and the next two weeks) that I could get advanced credit in a nursing school program.  Anyways the plan is to keep mommy fed through an IV and on a whole cocktail of medicines, that made even the pharmacist do a double take, for about two weeks until she can get her surgery.  Not a great plan, and filled with a whole lot of questions and potential problems, but it is a plan which is more than we had a few days ago or for pretty much the whole month of October.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Costume Change

To my son Tommy,

Tonight we went over to visit your mom in the hospital.  As we were getting ready you put on your Dorothy dress from your Halloween costume and asked if you could wear that out.  I had no objections, at first.  But then you kept adding to your outfit.  You put on a cowboy vest and your surgeon hat and of course normal sneakers.  It was quite the hodgepodge and to say the least you clashed.  If my son decides to cross dress, he has to at least surpass my bad taste in fashion.  So I told you to pick one theme, doctor, cowboy, or Dorothy.  I was ready to head up and get the ruby slippers when you decided to go as the doctor.  Any choice was okay with me but the doctor seemed quite apropos for the hospital.  You charmed all that saw you, but you would have done that with any of the choices.

While we were visiting, a nurse let you help with your mother.  She let you listen through her stethoscope to your mom's heart and breath and even the gurgles from her gut which she explained would sound like a washing machine.  She showed you how to feel a pulse and check for edema or as she explained "squishy" legs.  Maybe it was the surgeon outfit, or maybe it was the excitement of being a helper, but I believe I saw a glint in your eye.  I could see the glint of discovery and perhaps a spark that might lead you down the medical road.  Soon after we had to head home, bed time and all, and I joked that just like a real doctor you were leaving and leaving all the real work for the nurses to do.  Hopefully we will soon be able to leave the hospital and bring our patient with us, Doctor Tommy's orders and all.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo