We took Kelly last Friday to Pittsburgh, to check out the University of Pittsburgh on a Saturday morning visit. Kelly really liked it. Virginia and I were not impressed by the food, but we’re told we messed up, because there’s lots of good food there (didn’t make it to Primanti Bros., for example). Anyway, more colleges—and towns—to visit before we’re done, I’m told. Photos below.
A co-worker said to me once that there are two types of time off: trips and vacations. Trips include an itinerary. They are about the journey. On a trip, you recharge in motion.
Vacations are spent in one location, and are a chance to recharge without all the in-and-out of the car or the plane or the train.
We went out for dinner last week to celebrate Pete’s 20th birthday. He recently started an internship at the Valley Forge Casino & Resort, which he’s enjoying. So we’re off to a good start to the summer. Kelly is working at Tiny Tennis, where he tells us he is part of the management team. Ah, the benefits of working for a two-person company (including him).
Our niece Hannah Martin graduated from Wesley College this Spring (you can see photos here) and Chris and Judy threw a graduation party for her last weekend.
Good to see family, and to see Hannah complete her collegiate journey, which started in Montclair, N.J. So now she has a degree, and a new job—she’s enrolled in the managers training program with Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Life’s looking pretty good.
We celebrated Rosalie’s 80th birthday on Saturday at Chris and Susan’s home in Burtonsville. It was a neat party, with lots of Rosalie’s friends over for a lunch party. During the meal, there were a series of questions for Roz to answer about her life. It was not brief. But it was a lot of laughs, and everyone had a good time. We’ll have to do this again in 10 years, for her 90th.
My dad passed away four years ago today, May 23, 2010.
What I remember from that day, and the ones before and after, is being so very weary of my dad’s illness—his health had been spiraling in fits and starts for years, but it picked up a relentless, slipping velocity in the end. It’s a cliche to say I thought we would have more time, that there would be some blessed clarity and awareness and time to play games and talk about what was, and what might have been. To discuss regrets and triumphs. And that’s not how real life is. The death certificate lists “systemic organ failure” as my dad’s cause of death. One doesn’t muse over lives lived, or play a Strat-O-Matic tournament (or even better, Stratego, or The Russian Campaign) amid “systemic organic failure.” My dad fought for every breath until he didn’t. It exhausted him, and all of us. And while it seemed at the time to have gone on endlessly, I think now how it could have stretched out far longer, but didn’t. And the emotion that rises when I think about that is relief. In the face of his suffering, it was a grace.
The last substantial wish of my dad’s life was to escape the hospital and spend his final days in his home. That ended up lastng about 40 hours, but he got his wish. I will always remember his first night back home, a Friday, propped up in a hospital bed in the family room, a Dewar’s on the rocks, splash of water, on a tray in front of him and a Marlboro Light in his hand (it was a little late for chidings about his health), my mom sitting next to him on the skirt of the bed, and he smiling a bemused smile—an “I can’t believe I’m in my home” smile. The man was content. Sick as hell, deathly sick, but content. It never got better after that.
Four years after his death, the rifts and disagreements have retreated to the back rows of the auditorium. What sits up front are the things I think he’d enjoy. A good Mets game or the Sunday round of the Masters on TV, sitting in the rightmost side of the couch. Holding court on the back patio of his house, asking someone to take his glass inside and add some ice—and a little scotch. His kids making their way in the world. His grandchildren. I think he would be bursting over his grandkids. He saw only Hannah graduate high school, and he didn’t really get to see the bunch of them take on the outlines of their adult selves. He’d be worried—how are they going to support themselves? What are they going to do? he’d be asking—but he’d like them a whole hell of a lot. When I think about my dad and my sons, I feel a deep ache, and I feel him close to me.
And I like that. I need it. We certainly had things we disagreed over and, as with anybody who knows you really well, he could push my buttons. But I also know that I am his—father to son—in a way I’m no one else’s, that there are instincts and thoughts and habits that flow straight from the ol’ man, as surely as my boys have parts of me in them that, for better or worse, are ingrained in them till their last days.
Which brings me to The Greek. That was my dad’s nickname for me. Nobody’s called me that in 4 years. But rest assured, The Greek abides. And today, The Greek hurts a bit. Love you, dad.
Our niece Hannah graduated from Wesley College today, in Dover, Del. The rain held off, the graduation was a great celebration, and Hannah has interviewed for a job at Enterprise rental car company. A very good day!
We took Kelly on a college visit this weekend to the University of Delaware, where I went from 1984-88.
I was in Newark for work last fall so I had already experienced the half-familiarity of a place that I once knew really well but it has changed so much. Even so, I walked around much more on Saturday than I did last fall. I even went past the offices of the school newspaper where I was editor as a senior. It had changed less than anything else I saw—even the keypad to enter the office looked much as I remember it (no newfangled to gain access, and the sign and windows haven’t changed in 25 years). That was a bit of a shock. I remember one of my last acts as editor was to OK the purchase of a bunch of Macs to replace the terminals and typesetter we had used, and cursed, for my 2 1/2 years at the paper. I’m sure folks cursed me as well.
We’ll see where Kelly decides to go, but I still like Delaware. Some photos from our visit.
This is the bracket from Kevin’s company’s ping-pong tournament. Hmmm … whose name is there as the winner. Oh, Kevin.
There are at least two distressing things about this photo.
I wrote for Men’s Health recently about my 100 days (and nights) wearing a Jawbone UP24 activity tracker. If you want to save 5-6 minutes, I’ll give away the surprise: I learned more about what happens when I was asleep than when I was awake, and what I learned is that even a little alcohol affected my sleep quality. Put the saved time to good use.
The Unexpected Thing I Learned from My Activity Tracker (April 6, 2014)
The second time was a charm. Kelly’s junior prom at Methacton High went much better healthwise than the one two weeks earlier, when a migraine ended his night early. This time, he got home around 4, slept for 4 hours, then went and played in an ultimate frisbee tournament—which his team won. He got home from THAT around 6 pm, and slept the next 15 hours.
Below are photos from the pre-prom festivities, with his date Kirsten, a friend.
kevdonahue 