Dear Justin, On The Occasion of Your Third Anniversary Home

 

Dear Justin,

I remember Freshman orientation for high school. We were all packed into the bleachers in the gym. There must have been a hundred of us. We got introduced to the Principal, the Counselors, and the Teachers. Blah, blah, blah. I didn't like school very much. I wanted to be anywhere but Orientation. I'm sure that somewhere, there was a comic book calling my name. I needed to race home, and check the red phone. Somebody there said, "Make the most of your four years here, because before you know it, it'll be over." I snickered. Yeah, right. High school is gonna drag on like Orientation.  The next day, I was wearing a cap and gown at graduation. As I accepted my diploma, I remembered those words.

The only real lesson I learned from high school is to make the most of every minute. You might think that's Carpe Diem. "Seize the day". I think it's not only seize the day - or jump at the opportunity - but "be in the moment." Savor every second. Now, I'm not a very patient person, but I look at this as settle in and get comfortable. That might have come in handy had I learned that lesson while I was still in high school. I wasn't sure what your Mom and I were getting into when we agreed to spend a week together. But I knew I wanted to meet you. I knew I wanted to know what would happen next.

 

I've never been a fan of roller coasters. Probably because of my experience on The Demon at Six Flags. The summer The Demon opened, my buddy Derrick and I went on it. We were standing in line alongside the ride as they pulled a woman off and set her in a wheelchair and rolled her away. She looked pale and dizzy. My buddy Derrick said the color drained out of my face and I stopped talking completely until after we got off the ride. He said I turned white as a sheet.

 



Buddy-boy, you have been the greatest roller coaster ride in the history of roller coaster rides. I don't mind getting whipped around in all the twists and turns, the ups and downs. Okay, so I tend to scream like a little girl a lot - but, you, my "little buddy", are keeping me on my toes. You, your brother Ethan, and your sister Bella. As bumpy and rocky as the valleys are the hills are pretty thrilling and exciting. Probably a better way to describe them is...breathtaking.

You are incredibly challenging. I know that you feel the same sense of accomplishment that Mom and I do at rising and meeting the challenge. You have come so far - and not just geographically - and accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. Mom and I are so proud of you. It is so great meeting your teachers and listening to them say the same things about you. They are just as glad to have you around, just as glad that you are part of their world as we are.

There are a lot of people that think you're pretty cool.

I don't want you to get a swelled head - you do pretty good on your own, without Mom's and my help - or any of your teachers' help, either. I just don't want a minute to go by without you, or Ethan or Bells knowing how much we love you.

The boy who came to stay

Happy anniversary!

Popi   

   

  

 

The One About The Lazy Sunday

Sunday, May the 4th, 2014

click on the image to see where I got it from

Dave sez, Today is a lazy Sunday. The unofficial "Star Wars" day. May the Fourth. As in, May the Fourth be with you. It always sounds like Obi-Wan or Luke have a lisp. Can you imagine Darth Vader lisping, "The Fourth is strong with this one,"? Maybe if it was Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet in Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, maybe...

Randy Travis turns 55 today. In the radio biz that I work in, that's known as turning double-nickels!

The late Audrey Hepburn would have turned 85. She's best known for melancholy roles like Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden (brilliantly remade with Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear, but I digress) Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert; My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison; and Breakfast at Tiffany's with The A-Team's Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, the equally late, George Peppard.

Paul Xavier Gleason star of The Breakfast Club and Die Hard, just two of his many roles would have turned 75 (along with Batman, since they were both born in 1939!) His most famous line from The Breakfast Club ~

 

 

 

- and don't you forget it! The Lego Movie's Will Arnett, *NSYNC's Lance Bass and Pia Zadora are all adding another year today too.

 

Tomorrow, my sister and brother-in-law, Paula and John will be married for FORTY years.

 

They're lookin' pretty AWESOMETACULAR ain't they?

That is an achievement in this day and age. My folks married later in life and they were married 35 years when my dad passed away from prostate cancer in 2000. Mother's Day, 2000. That's coming up. On May 10th, my mom turns 81.

 

 

On Tuesday, Cathy and I will celebrate 24 years together. There's a Kiefer Sutherland, 24 joke in there somewhere, I'm sure.

 

Oh, yeah, anyway, we're just sitting around the apartment enjoying a quiet, lazy Sunday.

 

What's on my mind today, is I want you to imagine that you are five or six years old. The first people in the world you develop a relationship based on trust break that trust. For whatever reason - can't or don't - the people that made the conscious decision to bring you into the world have changed their minds. You are not theirs anymore. You are not any one's anymore. You're really no one. The people that define you, do not anymore.

 

On this lazy Sunday afternoon, I am very thankful that each one of my three children chose me. They chose me and Cathy. They each said to us and to a judge, I want them to be my parents. I want him to be my dad.

 

Cathy and I have talked from time to time about The Butterfly Effect. Basically, it is the idea that if a person could travel back in time and make a change - any change at all; like say, killing a butterfly, or in George Bailey's case in It's A Wonderful Life, erasing, or eliminating your own existence - profound changes take place. If Cathy and I had done any thing differently over the last twenty-four years, it is possible that we would not be blessed with Bella, Ethan or Justin.

 

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I think how each one of the children were introduced to us. Justin introducing us to Ethan; and, in turn, Ethan introducing us to Bella.

 

I look back over the last twenty-four years. There are some things I would have wanted to go differently. But not so differently that we wouldn't be where we are right now.

 

      

 

That's for sure.

 

Forever Five

The Fourth will be with you, always.