Friday, January 23, 2009

Children Should Not Die

A child, loved by parents and friends, died the other night. I didn't know the child, but the parents were friends of ours from the church in Washington. Not close friends, but friends nonetheless. We had been praying for them.

It's a fearful thing to face death with one so young. This young family had fought it for several years, knowing that, in all likelihood, it was coming sooner rather than later. For a while, there was hope that it had gone away - but then it came back, and the family knew it would be harder the second time around. And it was.

It would be nice to say all the right things, to give comforting words, to speak of heaven and peace and joy and the end of pain, but those words will not come. If it had happened to us, I wouldn't want the words of comfort right now. I wouldn't want pity or apologies or anything that, in the end, won't be remembered.

To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, I would just want my child back.

Every day of being a parent is, for me at least, a day of anxiety. Most people would tell me I obviously don't have enough faith or trust or understanding of God. Perhaps that is true. All I know is that every time my children are out of my sight, I worry about them. Nightmare scenarios arise unbidden in my brain, all the worst things that can happen. Even when they are with me, I worry as they walk that they might stumble; I worry that a driver might swerve into us and crush the side of the car where they sit; I worry that they might lose their balance and fall down the stairs. Every moment of potential danger, I am imagining what I might do to rescue them if something should happen.

I can't imagine what it would be like to watch a child slowly die over the course of weeks or months, knowing that there is nothing that I personally can do to save them. The doctors will give their medicines, the nurses will administer the painkiller, but there is nothing that I personally can do to save them or bring them comfort. My hugs and kisses will only do so much. And in the end, if one of my children did as this young girl did, slipping into a drug-induced sleep from painkillers until the brain finally shut down, I would sit by the bed and hold her hand and fall completely apart when it was all over and done. And even though life would go on and the sun would rise and the rest of the family would try to carry on, it would be a different world from that moment on because someone would be missing from it, denied her rightful place in it, cheated out of the joys and love that this life might have offered.

Knowing someone who undergoes this pain only makes it more real, this fact of life, this fact of death. If it could happen to them, it could happen to me. That's a thought that wakens me early in the morning, startled out of a dreadful dream filled with mortal terror. There are so many things in this world that bring pain and death, so many things to worry about; it's overwhelming. There is no way to get my arms around it all, no way to properly prepare for it - other than to place my trust in something that is far beyond my puny powers to even understand.

Perhaps that is the gut-level reason for my faith, the deep, hidden motive that lies at the secret heart of my mind. I can't deal with all the anxiety and worry that comes from trying to keep my loved ones alive and unhurt in this world of insanity; it is simply too much to bear. I need God because otherwise there is no hope, and if there is no hope, there can be no peace. Lord knows I need peace.

Lord knows we all need peace.

For the family of Jenna, I pray for peace.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The Leaf and the Ocean

There are rhythms in my life, repeated sequences of events which seem to beat at a fundamental frequency, moving me up and down along a sinusoidal path of feeling and emotion and fulfillment.

It is not certain whether my life is currently in a trough of the waveform, but it feels like it.

Like a leaf blown about on the surface of the ocean, my life travels up and down along the crests and troughs, riding the wave, rising to the summit in an ecstasy of joy and then descending to the darkening depths in despair. Such a lightweight, lilting, loose leaf without real substance or weight, without anchor, without direction, without purpose.

Sometimes it is enjoyable to live the life of the windblown leaf, seeing where the wind may blow, experiencing each high and low as a new and interesting story, a new chapter with the finale yet to be written.

But over time, the leaf becomes weary of the rising and falling and rising and falling, and merely wishes to find the shore where it may be possible to sit and be still and ponder and think and remain - immovable, entrenched, solid, stable.

My life is driven not by the whims of my own fancy but by the promises of others - the ones who offer employment in areas where my mind may have some interest. In each circumstance, their promises tempt me in some aspect where it may be possible to learn something new; they offer a way to satisfy my creative longings, a way to satiate my desire to build something wonderful, something new. They offer me something that cannot be obtained on my own, with my limited resources: to be a part of a team whose goal is nothing less than the creation of a System, a Mechanism by which the world will be made better, faster, stronger, more reliable. They offer me, a person too afraid of his own shadow to knock shyly upon a stranger's door, the opportunity to be a part of something Great.

In so doing, they offer much else besides, for the journey is not mine alone to take; a family accompanies me, a family for whom every ounce of my energy is expended in attempting to maintain their health, their well-being, their happiness and comfort. In choosing to pursue one promise or another, it is my intent to bring a better life and a better opportunity to my family so that they might also reap the benefits of this promise as my companions, my helpmates, my infrastructure.

It is for this reason that, when the promise is reneged upon, when the temptations are revealed as hollow and empty, when the fine words are revealed as nothing more than wisps of smoke, my ire is increased an hundredfold; my anger seethes, my eyes burn with rage, and my body trembles with anticipated revenge.

Yet Something stays my hand; my tongue is restrained from blistering those who deserve worse. There is yet some deep, hidden sentiment which holds me back, some vestige of loyalty to the dying dream which keeps me from abandoning the enterprise. Perhaps it is for those with whom the dream has been shared, those fellow-workers who have joined me in the struggle to achieve greatness, experiencing the same ups and downs. Perhaps it is for those who have truly done all they knew to do, even though they came up short. Perhaps it is merely for the sake of the dream itself. My hand falls to my side; my tongue remains silent.

And this is why I stay too long.

And that is why the crises arises.

And that is why the leaf stays on the ocean.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Three Deaths

I didn't know the woman. She was the wife of a co-worker, a co-worker who was no more than a name on an org chart to me, but the story of her death touched my heart with its suddenness and unexpectedness.

She had been suffering from some kind of physical problem for two or three years, one of those annoying kinds of malfunctions of the body that seem to start up some time in the middle years. Nothing serious, nothing that required drastic surgery or massive medication or chemotherapy or radiation. Just a gurgle or a wheeze or a shimmy, the kind of damage that happens to a body when it gets a few miles on it, the kind of thing that gets covered up with a bit of putty or paint or duct tape or a bobby pin.

Something happened over the holidays, some kind of excitement or stress or disturbance that exacerbated the situation enough to cause a little tiny bit of concern, a moment of worry, a trip to the hospital. Perhaps a bit of trouble breathing, perhaps a pain in the chest, perhaps a bit of dizziness. Enough to prompt a visit to the doctor.

An ordinary checkout of a slightly out-of-the-ordinary situation, but an extraordinary result. She never came home. Something went wrong inside that body, some vital function failed to operate properly, some tiny fault multiplied in sequence and brought the entire system to screeching halt.

And a family was left with questions and confusion.

* *

I didn't know the man, either, although most everyone at work did; he was a veteran of the Company, one of those young engineers hired right out of college who had managed to hang on to steady employment for twenty-three years. Married with three children, ranging in age from nine to seventeen, he had been pulling some serious overtime for quite some time, putting in a lot of hours and doing a very good job of it. Many people relied on him. He was one of those people who did what needed to be done and didn't ask for recognition.

He had just finished working a sixteen-hour day and was looking forward to a relaxing soak in the hot tub. His wife and kids were already in bed, sleeping off the rigors of the day. He walked out onto the ice-coated deck, slipped on something, fell down and slammed his head onto something. Blunt-force trauma, they said. Died instantly. And his family slept soundly until the next morning, discovering him on their way to breakfast.

Everyone knew him. He was one of those good guys that everyone wanted to know. People wandered around in shock when they heard. On the day of the funeral, it was impossible to find parking at the church where the service was to be held. Hundreds of people showed up. The sanctuary was full. There was a slide show of his life. He was my age. How is it possible to summarize someone's life in a slide show? He wasn't old, not really. He and his wife had so many years of memories, but so many more to come.

And then he was gone.

* *

I knew the last one. He and his family used to attend our church. We used to babysit his kids when his wife had to work and he had to rest. He was an interesting kind of guy, a mind full of mystery wrapped in an emaciated frame. We had always known of his physical troubles. It seemed like he was eternally on the prayer list for one problem or another, usually associated with digestive trouble. His wife was a wonderful, bubbly, happy kind of person - the only kind of person who could even begin to put up with the kind of man with whom she had cast her lot. They had three children who were somewhat tentative, yet anxious - anxious to be with their father as much as possible, as though they suspected he might not be around forever. They looked at him with anxious eyes, pleading with him to hang on for just a little while longer.

They had gone through some hard times, this family. The wife was the sole provider after her husband had to quit working due to all those physical problems. She accepted this resolutely, working two jobs to bring in enough money to deal with the day-to-day requirements as well as the doctor bills. He got depressed sometimes, depressed enough to cause her to despair, depressed enough to make her wonder if it wouldn't be better for her to cut her losses and start over someplace else. But in the end, she decided to stick it out. She got counseling, she gathered her friends and family around her, she pushed onward and accepted her burden and carried on.

And things were getting better these last few months. He was feeling better, things were settling down into a nice, ordinary routine; he was happier, the kids were doing well, everything seemed to be looking up.

Then one Sunday morning when she tried to wake him up for church, he did not wake up. He was dead. He died in his sleep. No warning, no pain, no suffering. Just ... gone.

He was thirty-four years old. Three kids, seven and younger. A young wife who had just experienced perhaps her best year yet. Many, many friends and family in the area.

We went to the funeral and found, again, that the room was packed to the rafters. No slide show this time, but plenty of pictures on posterboard. Lots of pictures. Lots of friends and family standing and looking at the pictures and sniffling and wiping at teary eyes. They all knew what he had gone through. They all knew how he had started to improve. They had all hoped things were going to get better for him and for his family, that this young family would grow in strength and wisdom and maturity, moving past the struggles of those hard times.

Now the widow sat in the front row of chairs and sobbed as the minister told the audience that he was free, finally free; free of pain, free of depression, free and happy in his new heavenly home, sitting with Jesus and looking down in love at his family. She was not sobbing from happiness at his freedom; she was sobbing because the man who had courted her, the man who had kissed her and held her close, the man who had promised to love and cherish her til death do us part, was gone. She sobbed because the life she had known was now over, and the future was a gray fog with more questions than answers.

* *

Death is hard to understand when we are young, and impossible to understand when we are older. We look through the obituaries in these middle years and react with subdued fear and wonder when we read of those who die young, before their time. Most of the pictures are of old people. Old people have a right to die, a right to go to their eternal rest, after spending a good, long life here on earth. They have earned it. But those young people - how is it possible for them to leave so soon? They have so much left to do! They have children to raise, spouses to support, family reunions and birthdays and celebrations and holidays and all those other events to attend.

I don't recall seeing quite so much death before coming to Michigan. Certainly there were people who died of one thing or another when we lived in Seattle, but it never struck me quite the same way there as it does here. It seems as though there are far more deaths due to motor vehicle accidents out here, especially involving young people. Sometimes it seems like it is one every day. We get numbed to it. It is announced every day in the news, like the fact that it is raining (or snowing). It is the way it is. Death comes to those who are not ready for it, and it happens more often than we expect it, and those of us who are left behind look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder if we might be on the ten o'clock news tomorrow, the victim of a fatal head-on collision or a sudden heart unexpected heart attack or a fall off a ladder or any one of a number of possible ends.

It is acceptable for old people to die. It is expected that old people will die. We can look back on their lives and celebrate their accomplishments and rejoice that they have lived their threescore and ten and now moved on to better things. But for those who leave so soon, those who barely got started (and those who are thirty-four or forty-five or fifty-two have barely started), we feel cheated somehow, that perhaps they deserved a few more years to be with their families, to see their children grown up with families of their own, to get to the point in their lives when they can look back with some satisfaction and believe that their time on this earth was of benefit to someone.

I have always expected death around every corner. Perhaps I am too morbid or too cynical, or perhaps my mind dwells too much on the darker side of life. Every time the clock reminds me that it is past time for someone to be home and they are not, my mind conjures visions of disaster. Every time the car starts to slide a bit in the rain or the slush or the snow, the crash scenarios flash into my brain. Every time I read or hear of a death which comes too soon, I dream of my own, regretting all the things which I have not yet accomplished and wondering how my family will get along without me (knowing full well they have plenty of support from both family and friends).

I hope to live long enough to play with my grandchildren. It is well and good to know that I will see everyone again when we are all up in heaven, but I am enough of a selfish person to desire that experience here on earth. I hope it is not too much to ask.

In the meantime, I think of those people both known and unknown, and send a prayer up to God that their families will be comforted in this time of sadness and mourning.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Two Birthdays

January 11th, 1965, was the day set aside for the birth of my little sister, Jeanne. I can't imagine my life without her; she was, for the longest time, my best friend and closest companion in the journey of life that began so long ago in far-off California, and through that on to Arkansas, Texas, and Virginia. We were always "the little guys", which pitted us against our older siblings in a traditional competition to see who could drive our parents around the bend furthest and fastest. It was a stiff competition, and we would've won, too, had it not been for the onset of puberty, when my best friend and playmate was suddenly whisked off to Never Never Land to become A Young Woman (whilst I was obviously still A Boy).

So I gained a room of my own, but lost my best playmate.

In the intervening years, she went on to become A College Student who, in the family mythology, zipped through school at the speed of light, supplemented her meager income by donating blood, lived off air and promises, became a teacher with Definite Ideas Of Her Own, found, dazzled and married a young engineering-type man of geek repute, begat two amazing and incredibly talented children, survived her husband's pursuit of a Doctorate Degree, managed a household consisting of more animals than humans, and found sufficient time and energy to read, write, sew, cook, sing, pray, teach and lead.

Truly an amazing person.

Were it not for the fact that we live such distant and disparate lives, she in the warmth of Tucson, busily accomplishing wonderful things, and I in the cold and wintry northern country, huddled under a blanket and trying not to waste energy by moving, we would undoubtedly gather for a well-deserved round of cake and song. As it stands, however, we think of her today and call down blessings from the Lord on her head, that she may, in the words of my favorite Vulcan, "Live long and prosper."

There is another birthday today, that of a dear friend in whose company I have not been lo these many years gone by: Jay Franklin Smith, born on this day in the year 1960. I miss him, as I miss all the people who we left behind on the Pacific shores when we departed. But there is a special part of my heart that he owns, and perhaps the only way that anyone can understand the feeling I have for him, is to tell a story about him.

I first met Jay back in the early 90's when we were both working on the 777 program at Boeing. We were module testers. Module testers are the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth, the guns-for-hire who are brought in to do the drudge work of writing tests for each and every block of code that goes into a major piece of avionics software such as the piece we were working on. It wasn't especially creative work; it didn't require reams of talent or libraries of knowledge. It was vital and important to the success of the program, but it would never give us meaning to our lives.

Yet we were - are - both highly creative people. The type of people who like to laugh. And be silly. And Boeing was stupid enough to put us in the same cubicle. Where we could feed off each other, crack jokes, make each other laugh at silly things that other people - or companies - did. It was like putting nitro and glycerin together.

It was one of the happiest work experiences of my life, sitting there with Jay and doing mindless work and laughing all day long. If there was ever a time in my life when it was easy to go to work every day, that was it. Jay made it fun. Sometimes it was actually difficult to get work done because the work was never as fulfilling as just being there and talking to Jay, but we managed. We did do our work.

There were some - oh, I can't remember the names! - there were some people who frowned upon our frivolity. For them, work was serious place, and laughter was as out of place as a hamburger at a Vegan restaurant. It was the guy on the other side of the wall, a guy for whom frowns were the uniform of the day, a guy for whom the job was degrading and tedious and punishment; and How dare we enjoy ourselves when we were supposed to be getting work done?

He complained. Not to us, mind you, but to our manager. They won't stop laughing, he (probably) said. They talk and talk and talk all day long, they cut up and joke around; I can't even think with them around. What a spoil-sport! But Managers can't just let those things slide. They have to do things, fix things, make things work out for the good of the Company.

The Manager talked to us. I seem to recall that he called us in separately and talked to us, but my memory may be faulty. I do remember being "talked to", though, and being chagrined and angry, all that the same time. Mostly I felt bad because I'd brought trouble down on the head of my friend. I didn't want to jeopardize that friendship - but I also couldn't imagine coming to work and not having the chance to talk and laugh with Jay.

We were quiet for a little while, and I was all red-faced and embarrassed and angry, trying to think up some vicious things to do to the guy which I'd never do, but it made me feel better to think about it. And then I snuck a look over at Jay, and he was smirking. Smirking. He was annoyed as much as I was, probably angry, too; but he kept his humor about it. He wasn't going to let this jerk ruin his day. And he didn't. He let the guy have a little while to cool off, to think he'd won the point, and then slowly, steadily, he started doing what we'd done before. Talking. Laughing. Enjoying each other's company.

I seem to recall that we got called on it again, but after seeing Jay's reaction that first time, I just let it slide. It didn't matter. He wasn't going to let that guy dictate how he acted at work. I don't remember what happened to the guy we were annoying - he must've moved on or something - but months later, Jay and I were still there.

We both moved on after that, even working at Microsoft together for a short time (in the same office!), and every time we got together, it was as if we'd never left. Jay was always funny, happy, considerate, smart and witty - and an amazing artist, of course. Sometimes I wonder how he could do all that and still get his work done. But he always did.

Happy Birthday, Jay.

Happy Birthday, Jeanne.

Friday, January 02, 2009

Facebook Explosion

We got our Facebook account a few weeks back, and all of a sudden we're coming into contact with people we haven't seen since High School. It's just weird. We've also gotten in touch with people we haven't seen since we left Seattle four-and-a-half years ago. That's neat, but still weird. And then there are people we see nearly every week. That's OK, but time-consuming, answering all the facebook comments along with the email side-effects.

Makes me want to do a search on all the people I've ever known, just to see if they have joined the Collective as well, to find out what they are all doing these days. But I'm afraid there have been a lot of bridges burned by my nearly-total lack of ability to keep in touch with people. I'm a lousy letter-writer, as you are probably all aware.

Luckily, most people I've ever known are just about as bad as me. Except for those who were thoughtful enough to send Christmas cards and/or letters. They qualify for sainthood. We are still working on our annual end-of-the-year letter, which might give you an indication of how insane things have been around here. Should be mailed out by Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe. Don't hold your breath.

Christmas vacation was a wash. Other than the time spent with relatives on Christmas Day and New Years Eve / New Years Day, I was working.