The Four Seasons of Snow

It’s been two months since I have written, and I apologize for that.  Thanks to all of you who have emailed me, reminded me, and encouraged me to get back at it.   For everything there is a season, and this past two months has not been the season for writing, which is the essence of this story.  This story encompasses a month, and I will have to take you on a bit of a trip to tell it so you can appreciate it.  So be patient for a few minutes as I share the following with you. 

As the story starts, it is the day after Thanksgiving of 2009.  I am sitting in a chair on my driveway eating an apple pie.  Not a piece of pie, mind you, but I am eating the whole pie, with the pie pan in my lap and a fork in my hand.  The sun is out, as usual, and the temperature is in the mid-60’s. It is a day well worth living. My dog, Riley, is sitting directly in front of me on the driveway in her “begging” position.  She wants pie too, and I give in numerous times, because she has me trained well.  I have spent the last two days putting my yard away for the winter.  That means raking and mulching and digging up bulbs, mowing one last time, cleaning the gutters, winterizing the cars, etc., etc., etc.  I have two favorite times of year, and this is one of them.  The other is getting the yard back out in the spring, where we essentially repeat all the above in reverse.  

As this story ends, it is New Year’s Day, 2010.  Some things have changed since that day back in November, and some things have not. I am NOT sitting in my driveway eating a pie, as the temperature outside today is -1, and there is a foot of snow on the ground. Besides, we don’t have any more pie.  I am sitting in my 90%-windowed office eating fudge instead, a whole plate of it. I am reclining in my office chair, with my feet up, Christmas music playing, and fireplace roaring.  Riley is again sitting directly in front of me in her begging position. And I again oblige.  The sun is out again, as it seems to be quite a bit in this part of the country. And as I sit here, I am able to reflect on the last several months and all they have brought, good and bad and funny and tragic and yet unknown, to our family, our friends’ families, and our world in general.    

The last several months have been a very scary and emotional time for both sets of my parents, with a pancreatic cancer scare, two bad falls, a return of prostate cancer, and an overall unending health drama that older years bring as a reward to those who have worked hard and done right for many years. This is hard on our parents, and they are afraid.  It is hard on us too, and we are afraid for them, and we are afraid for us.  Some of our friends have lost loved ones, people we in fact have known and loved ourselves. My wife, Gloria, continues to suffer from neck pain brought on by an auto accident last year. Tiger Woods imploded, and while that seemingly has little bearing on my family or daily life, our heroes’ failures do place pressures on all of us.  Like the lowering of the tide, it brings us all down.  And on and on and on this litany can go….if we let it. 

I am sure that my little world is not the only one afflicted with heartache and instability.  I have little doubt that you have experienced times like these, perhaps even now, and perhaps even harder times than I have described. None of us are in a position to escape life’s bad things. Bad things happen even to the best people, even to those who seemingly best prepare. I have MORE than experienced this personally. I don’t have an answer for why other than since the origin of our species, life has been hard. That is the only constant that we are given when we are born. The story of Job in the Bible sets this all up beautifully. Life has to be manufactured by each one of us with no guarantees of a “happy” anything. We are required to eek out a living on a rocky-surfaced, hot ball of magma that is hurdling through space at 38,000 mph. And then once we eek out an existence, we want to be happy doing it.

Every one of us cried coming into this world,perhaps an omen of things to come, and tears will inevitably accompany our leaving this world. How we handle the events in the years in between is what I believe determines our success in life and whether life was worth living at all. How and whether we (1) pushed back against the randomness and (2) how and whether we took time to enjoy the good things that are all around us are two very important things. Regarding the first, the place where we are does not have to be the place where we end up. We can achieve things; we can reduce the probability of bad things happening.  And regarding the second, when we do get hit my one of life’s random mortars, how we handle it (or them, as these things always come in bunches) is really what defines whether we are, in fact, happy or not.  If you look around, there are many, many things to bring us down. But if we are capable of refocusing, we will also see many, many things that are good. Focusing on them helps us balance the inevitable existence of the bad things. But it takes effort, as the bad things have more gravitational pull on our psyche.

So, this is New Year’s Day.  It is the most natural opportunity for transition in our culture. Like my yard in the fall, I can put some things away. And like my yard in the spring, I can get some things out. I can “mulch” all the old things, and I can start to plant new things. The new ones will not grow by themselves.  I’ll need to tend to them.  I do not know what life will bring this year.  I know that some things will go well, and I know that some things will not. Will I be happier one year from now? Maybe.  But not without effort.

And so I pledge to do two things this year. (1) I will push back, because I can, and doing so might make things better in the long run for my family and me. There are many things in life I want to accomplish. I can’t take my eye off of them. I actually started this transition about two months ago, and I was so busy I didn’t have time to write.  And (2), I will be more and more mindful of the good things, making sure I enjoy them in order to balance the ever-present bad things in life.  I challenge you to do the same. If you don’t like where you are, change it. And no matter what you do, look around and identify happiness.

And as such, despite the afflictions and general chaos, I thank God for the long (but incomplete) list of things below,  which may be too long of a list for you to read.  So, yOu might consider spending the time making your own list. I guarantee you will be happier when you are done:

..this fudge…..the whole plate of it,
..the pie…..the entire pie…it was great,
..the sunshine,
..the foot of snow, which is quite uncommon around here,
..the nose-clearing cold air,
..my beautiful wife, who despite neck pain and headaches, brings smiles and laughter into many lives every day, especially mine,
..my two children, who lift my spirits and make me proud every time they walk into the room,
..my friend Wayne, who has buoyed me through bad times, whose Christmas present to me this year was way beyond expectations, and whom someday I will beat in racquetball,even if I have to cheat and break his leg,
..Rich Schneider, my mentor and the person who guaranteed that 2010 will be “my year”,
my old college roommate and still friend “Tree”, whom I get to abuse unmercifully and sophomorically on a daily basis,
..my old college roomate and still friend “Meat”, whose example has taught me much,
..my brothers, of which I am still the best looking,
..my Florida parents, who endure life and keep smiling, and who raised five boys without jumping off a bridge or locking up the boys in cages,
..my Oregon parents, who through their trials have taught me much,
..my wife’s parents, who have been rock solid and who still play a mean game of shuffleboard and spades,and who love goo moo pai gan,
..my dog, Riley (Skipper), who is trying to find a way to naturally bond to my hip, who makes me laugh every single day,and who does flips in the air when I come home, even if I’m only gone ten minutes,
..my office, which is a refuge,
..my boss, whose nearly bizarre energy levels are only outshined by her kindness,
..my ‘65 Chevy pickup, which constantly reminds me of my Grandfather and Grandmother Snow, his work ethic, and her servitude and fried chicken,
..the three hand-painted bird pictures in my office, which were Christmas gifts from my Grandmother Lee, and which remind me of her virtues in raising nine children by herself,
..the 455 real birds that we feed outside of my office window, with the exception of the mean Blue Jays,
..my wife’s beautiful Christmas decorations,
..the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose six championships give our family a link to immortality,
..the lowly Kansas City Royals, where we can get really good seats because the team plays so poorly,
..my book collection, which looking at makes me happy,
..Wally, who died two weeks ago, who repaired my car many times and who pulled us out of the ditch in ten feet of snow,
..the Grand Canyon, the Columbia Gorge,
..the History Channel, ESPN, and Everybody Loves Raymond,
..Tostitos chips with a hint of lime,
..the Capital One barbarians,
..Joe Pa, his longevity, and his grumpiness,
..the little girl with red boots who was in my grandmother’s Sunday School class,