For the past several months I have struggled mightily to keep the flood of grief contained within the levees that define my personal life. For the most part I have managed to keep my professional life high and dry, as it were. There have been a couple of minor breaks in the dike, but nothing that was really major.
Recent events, however, are conspiring to overwhelm my meager defenses, and I am afraid that my professional persona will suffer as a result. Specifically the impending death of my mother has overloaded me. What little patience I was starting to develop with myself and issues in my personal life is once again gone. And the reserve of patience I was utilizing for work is gone as well. Events and situations that should be like water off a duck’s back are now setting me off. Combine this with an atmosphere of retribution and knee-jerk reactions and I am in a dangerous position. As much as I hate to admit this, I have come to the end of the rope and, in order to hang on, I have to jettison anything that might weigh me down.
Being in charge of the project at work is something I always wanted for myself. I am proud of my leadership abilities, and it makes me feel good to have been selected. The reality, however, is that I can’t function at the level I need to perform this assignment adequately. I am able to perform my individual assignments as those require minimal interaction with other people and their agendas. Being in charge means accepting those agendas and molding them into a cohesive force that moves the project in the right direction. I simply do not have that level of patience and caring within me now.
In a few minutes I am meeting with the project manager to inform him that I feel it is in the best interests of the client, the project, and all involved, that another resource be given the leadership assignment. On the surface this feels like a cop-out, and I am fearful it will hurt me in the long run in the eyes of the management team. At a deeper level I know I am doing what is best for me, and that any short term impact my stepping aside has on the project, will be more than offset by removing any threat my emotional health might have on the success of the team. Arriving at this decision has been extremely difficult but, having reached it, I am feeling a sense of peace I haven’t know for several weeks now.
Peter Drucker is quoted as saying that management is doing things the right way and leadership is doing the right thing. Stepping aside is doing the right thing.
From iWalt (and Google Video) comes this amazing display of juggling.
Search: How Google & Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business & Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle is a very interesting look at the short history of search on the Internet. I particularly found the author’s ideas about where the Internet might go as a result of revenues made from click streams and search keywords interesting. While Google is the central theme to this book, considerable background information about the search industry is provided which should be of interest to any one who has been online for the past ten years.
Rating: Perfect for your next long, cross-country drive.
The follow up book to Monkeewrench, Live Bait is just as good and shows that the mother / daughter team known as P. J. Tracy is no fluke. Great characters, good humor, and some nice plot twists combine to make this a great read.
Rating: Don’t start it on a work night, you’ll be up all night trying to finish it.
The shortest route between Overland Park and Decatur takes you along Route 54 in Missouri and Illinois. Shortly after crossing the Mississippi River heading east you come to a small cross roads called Atlas Illinois. At the four-way stop there is a general store with a sign out front. In a classic “eats, shoots and leaves” moment, the sign reads, “EAT HERE GET WORMS.”
I had to take a picture.
Over the weekend I traveled to Illinois to see my family, specifically my mother. Mom, and my oldest biological niece, share a birth date so Saturday’s party was for both. Knowing that my mother’s time is now limited made the trip hard in many ways.
I wasn’t at all looking forward to seeing her, as I wasn’t sure how bad she was. As it turned out my mom was looking pretty good, for a terminally ill lung cancer patient. She is obviously tired and in some discomfort, but still able to get around. She displayed very little appetite, and my father told me she hardly eats anything any more. the best part of seeing her was that her hair has come back. In September she was still bald from radiation treatments, and in December she had just a short stubble of hair.
Saturday was a good day for her and we were able to spend over seven hours at my brother’s house. My sister-in-law had decorated the family room with balloons and streamers, and both of my youngest nieces were dressed in fairy princess costumes, one as Sleeping Beauty and the other as Snow White. They were both adorable. They both gravitate towards their grandmother, and it is obvious that she loves them totally and unconditionally. It made me feel very good inside to see the three of them interact with each other. It also made my heart break to think that there would only be a few more visits.
The hardest part of the day proved to be singing “Happy Birthday” to my mom. As there were two birthday girls there were two rounds of the song. Singing for Riley was easy, but my throat choked up while singing it for my mom. Unless a miracle happens I’ll never get to sing it to her again.
All weekend I had been dreading Sunday morning as that is when I would have to leave. In preparation for seeing my mom I had written a letter and planned some things I wanted to say. However when the time came around I didn’t feel an impending sense of need. I reminded them that I would be back again in four weeks on my way to Chicago, and my mom, clearly reading my mind said, “It’s okay, Mark, we’ll be here.” Later when I hugged her goodbye she said, “I’ll be okay. I’ll see you in four weeks.”
In all it was a good visit. My father and I were able to talk some about his situation and his thoughts about the future. We both recognized without saying it, that I have more immediate experience in dealing with the loss of a spouse. It felt good that he was turning to me for input and advice. One of Michele’s greatest fears was that she had somehow come between me and my family. I vociferously fought that claim; in my opinion the relationship between me and my family was always lacking and Michele’s role in the dynamics of the family hadn’t damaged what was already failing. However, I would be less than honest if I didn’t acknowledge that the growth I have experienced since losing Michele has helped me to see my family in a different light. With the understanding that our time with any loved one is limited, I find I am more accepting of the relationship my family is capable of, and less demanding that they achieve the level I want.
One of the joys about the impending death of a loved one is the seething undercurrent of anger that dogs you morning, noon, and night. You know in the depths of your soul that nothing will ever be the same again. You realize that the last normal moment of your life has already passed without notice or ceremony. The you that existed without the awful certainty of death tainting everything is somewhere in your past and every second carries that self farther and farther away.
Going to see my mother this weekend is simply awful. I do not want to go, as if by refusing to see her I can force her to be okay. Going means coming back here, and that of course means saying goodbye. How many times have I said goodbye to my mom in this lifetime? Hundreds, thousands? All of those instances are insignificant, almost meaningless in light of the one fast approaching on Sunday.
I am going to Illinois this weekend in order to say goodbye. To act with the knowledge that, while she may live another month or three, the end of her life has arrived. There will come a day in the coming weeks when the phone will ring and that part of me that senses the near future will recoil, and I will know that her time has come. Maybe the call will be to say I need to come right now. Maybe the call will be to say she has died.
All the metaphysical knowledge in the world, all the faith of what life and death are really about, all the belief in the eternal nature of our essences is meaningless when faced with the little boy inside of me who only knows that his sister died and went away. That his protector, champion, best friend, and wife to his adult self died and went away. And now his mother is dying and will go away too.
Everyone I love dies and goes away.
I missed Jonathan Rauch’s article Caring For Your Introvert article when it first came out, but thanks to kottke.org I was introduced to it today.
It perfectly describes Michele, and moreover, it describes me too. All my life I have tried to tell people I was shy only to have them object. Now I know that what I was describing as shy is really introversion. How perfect then, is this medium, where I can, to quote Kottke, “carry on a conversation with a whole group of people and stare down at my shoes at the same time.”
Now, please go away and leave me alone.
As a boy I favored Johnny Cash records largely because he sang about trains (Wreck of the Old 97, Orange Blossom Special) and because A Boy Named Sue struck me as funny. For much of my life since then I haven’t really followed him or his work, but hearing I’ve Been Everywhere recently got me interested in him again.
American IV: The Man Comes Around is darkly powerful, stark, almost foreboding in its overall sound. His voice is craggy, worn, and full of a lifetime of experience. And yet in the midst of what, from any other artist might be a nihilistic message, there is a thread of hope, of a light at the end of it all.
After a ten year hiatus I have started to ride my bicycle again. Last fall I took the better of my two bikes out of storage and over to the neighborhood bicycle shop for new tubes, tires, and a general tune up. For having been moved four times, and stored for much of the past decade or more, it was in surprisingly good shape. Too bad the same can’t be said about me.
I rode twice in late October, the first ride was a neighborhood shake down ride to see if the old adage is true. I didn’t fall or otherwise injury myself so apparently you really don’t forget. The second ride was more ambitious, with a friend from work who rides regularly. He was very patient and understanding as I struggled to crest even the shortest hills, and needed frequent breaks to catch my breath. In all we maybe rode 10 miles.
My total milage for 2005? 11 miles. W00t! Hey… it’s eleven more than 2004, 2003, 2002, et cetera, combined.
Today turned out to be a very pleasant early spring day, with a windy high of about 65 degrees. On my way to a lunch out I thought about getting a pair of riding shorts and a frame pump and going for a short ride. Knowing myself self as well as I do, I bagged lunch and headed for the bicycle store instead. Ten minutes and $90 later I walked out with new shorts, a water bottle, and a pair of vinyl clad hooks to suspend the bike from.
Ten minutes after that I was back at the store with my Cannondale in tow to size frame pumps. I ended up spending another $65 to get both a Blackburn frame pump and a floor model for use in the garage. After twenty or so minutes I had the hooks mounted and the bike up off the floor and more or less out of the way. (After I sized up the garage later I think I found a better spot. Moving the whole setup will have to wait for the next warm weekend however.)
With my water bottle rinsed and filled with water, my new shorts on, and a nylon shell as windbreaker I set off for another neighborhood shake down ride. You may not forget how to ride but that doesn’t mean you are graceful or coordinated at all. In just over twenty minutes I managed to cover about 5 miles. Not stellar, but a beginning.
And just for grins, here is a Wayfaring map of my route today.