December, 2009

This Christmas was actually the second we had without my son Jordan’s big grin as he looked at the tree. The ripple effects are still being felt. Life has gone on for us, it has a way of doing that. We’ve done our best to honor his memory. As of today I fully funded his environmental scholarship for the coming year. I don’t remember if I told you about it here, I mentioned it on my Facebook account. I started a scholarship/grant program for students to apply for dollars for either school or for special environmental projects they need help funding. Jordan loved the environment – he loved to hunt and fish and spent a large part of his life playing out in the great outdoors. The fund is for any and all kids – not just the stellar achievers, the athletic kids, the ‘connected’ kids – as President Truman once said “C students run the world” or something along those lines. We also have an athletic scholarship that we started last year. His gravesite is marked by memorabilia friends and family have placed there.

We still haven’t watched “The Santa Clause”. I thought I could this year. He loved that movie, I loved that movie. I held it this year and when I did I saw him sitting in his customary spot on the carpet with his plate in front of him, hard as he’d try he couldn’t help but have a big grin and his eyes sparkled. He didn’t have to be cool here or anything else. Just a kid who loved Christmas. The movie sits in the box with the rest of the Christmas movies. Maybe next year I can watch it.

One of the ripple effects is the things you never expect. I got a Blu-ray DVD player for Christmas. Now I could finally watch the latest Batman movie in true high definition! It’s basically the reason to own a Blu-ray player. Well due to the blizzard our Christmas with the girls had been postponed to Sunday. So we met midway and the girls jumped in the truck and we were talking and laughing and catching up on things. For some reason we talked about movies and the new Blu-ray player and I suggested we now get to watch Batman!…sudden silence…the air grew heavy. I asked what was wrong. That was the last movie Jordan had watched. I guess the ‘fortunate’ thing now is that we’ve sort of learned to breathe after things like that jab us in the heart. Life doesn’t grind to a halt, it trips us up for a moment. We breathe. We start to talk again, sometimes about Jordan. Sometimes about something else.

Christmas has changed. The girls no longer have a list of things on their wish list. I have to threaten them to get the list – this year’s threat was that I would buy them both American Girl dolls if I didn’t get some ideas from them. Their lists are very short, and pretty practical now. And they’re happy, they’re happy with a few presents, they’re happy in this moment. A gift from Jordan I think. Jordan always lived in this moment. I wrote about that before. I’m still learning how to do that. Not spend my time looking at my phone or thinking about where I’ll be next, etc. I listen to the girls, I try to listen to whoever is speaking and hear them. Not plan my next action. We all pretend we live in the moment, we say we do – we lie. One of my life’s goals is to learn for my mind to be where my body is at that moment.

The girls brought presents this year. They think about the gifts they give now. And the joint present they went in on for us was a framed, engraved poem. It reads:

Little I knew that morning,
God was going to call your name.
In life we loved you dearly,
In death we do the same.

It broke our hearts to lose you.
You did not go alone,
For part of me went with you,
The day God called you home.

You left us beautiful memories
Your love is still our guide.
And though we cannot see you,
You are always by our side.

Our family chain is broken,
and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one,
The chain will link again.

From the plaque hangs a heart, suspended by little chains on each side.

It was another ‘breathe’ moment. It was a beautiful memorial from my girls. They watched me read it. My eyes wanted to rain. They want to rain writing this. But my girls were there, as was Kat, and my dad and his wife, Jean. That made reading it easier. That made breathing easier. It sits now by his urn and his memorial candle.

And sad as it is in those moments, we smiled. Soon we laughed. We enjoyed Christmas in a subdued way. It’s harder for my girls, they sleep in Jordan’s former bedroom. They live in the same house. They had to face the loss square in the face, and continue to do so every day that they wake up. Can you imagine the strength they’ve had to build? Yet they do it – and they smile, they smile a lot now. They remember – Jord comes up in our conversations. Sadly but fondly. I watched them this Christmas and was absolutely amazed at who they have become and what they’ve overcome to get here. I guess Jordan’s ongoing present to each of them is the strength they’ve developed to remember him with a smile. As he was an amazing young man, so they have become truly amazing young ladies.

I was very blessed to have family surround me this Christmas season. For some reason each person had decided to give me way too many gifts. I told them all that. And each said they had decided I deserved it this year because I always give. I don’t know if they coordinated it but it was overwhelming. I like giving presents, I love seeing people’s faces and making them smile, if I were rich, I would be poor… It was actually kind of awkward opening a lot of presents, giving is receiving… but it was a great Christmas.

Did you know there’s a new app for the iphone that if you hold it up on the street you’re standing it will give you info on your surrounding area – literally you’re watching the video of the street and it flashes information on restaurants, etc. And there’s a new product I heard about (I’m addicted to podcasts so bombard my brain with useless info every time I’m in the truck) in which your cell phone transmits info to your eyes via contact lenses – similar to a HUD in a plane. This would be good for me because I don’t remember anyone’s name, etc. and it could remind me – “this is your mom” and warn me to make a comment when staff changes something about them that I’m supposed to comment on. We had a staff member that apparently changed her hair from auburn to flaming red. She drove me nuts so I always considered myself lucky if I could refill my coffee in the break area and get away from there before she stepped out of her office to begin a mundane conversation about everything in her life. Apparently she stopped talking to me for a week because everyone else had commented on her wonderful new hair-on-fire look except me – I just thought it was a good week. Anyway, a device like that would’ve noted the drastic difference in hair color and given me a suitable compliment as well as topics to avoid. Perhaps in the future it will provide a radar-like heads-up so that I can know which hallways to take to get to the coffee without bumping in to people I don’t want to talk to.

After Jordan died last year, I found my desire and discipline to work out just evaporated. I guess just working at my stressful job with its insane hours, plus the farm operations were enough to sap the energy I had. The result is I’m in terrible shape if you ask me. So I decided to do something about it and bought some snowshoes to get back out there. The maiden voyage didn’t go well – apparently you have to have them on your feet really, really tight… It did however allow me to get closer to nature as I spent quite a bit of time looking closer at it as it rushed up at me as I landed on my face.

The next day went better, though I attacked it with perhaps too much vigor and should’ve started with a smaller journey. Halo (my collie) likes to follow behind me letting me be the trail blazer and keep stepping on the back of the showshoes, reuniting me with the ground over and over. I knew the general direction home but having not worked out in far too long, I decided to hike through some wetlands which have weeds that seek to grab you and keep you with them to share their lonely existence. By the time I hiked out out of those weeds – after debating a number of times whether to turn back and follow my broken trail, continue moving deeper into woods looking for a better trail out or just resign and forage for a meager existence…I continued forward. As I fell farther and farther into a weakened state of exhaustion (otherwise known as reinforcement that I’m out of shape…) and malnourishment (Doritos sounded really good…) and dehydration (man a hot cup of coffee would be SO good out here…) that’s when I asked the dogs to assist in finding a trail. After that I realized they’re really only man’s best friend because among guys we mooch, and dogs really like to just sorta mooch off you as opposed to cats who make you feel like they do you a favor if they lower themselves to accepting something you offer them versus them stealing it off your plate when you get up to get something. Walker just likes to run and explore. He could’ve cared less if we’d become stranded out there.

Needless to say, we did make it out alive and plan to write a book about our experience and get on Oprah before she pretends to retire and instead switches to the cable network she owns. Or at least have more coffee and Doritos.

I’m on vacation finally – had the last meetings of the decade yesterday, finished some huge negotiations so we end the year on a high note and now we’re getting tons of snow – woohoo!

I’ll try and get more pictures and blogs up now that things are hopefully slowing down a bit. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and God bless us everyone!

Jeff

Merry Christmas from Raindance Farms, South Range, WI