Another Year Older

It's true, I don't do this for everyone's birthday (on purpose actually, as I deliberately don't set my own bar too high), but I couldn't resist celebrating a big, big birthday this week. As of Wednesday, my larger than life Dad is 75. And instead of bringing in his birthday at home with a ski day at Snowbasin and a fancy meal fixed by my mother, he is almost exactly halfway around the world surrounded by vanilla beans, mangos, and geckos he occasionally vacuums up. For him, I am going to share three memories.

Memory une. When my Dad had back problems years ago, he would walk up and down our street because it made him feel better to be in motion (imagine that). I still remember the way his loose Chaco sandals sounded as they scuffed on the pavement. I don't remember any particular conversations, only his invitations that I walk with him anytime I was home.

Memory deux. My Dad still sports a Velcro headband with a Hawaiian print when he works in the yard. And the widest, old school brown belt you'll ever see. He mows the lawn like someone is holding a fire torch to his heels. And he used to throw his awful socks in my face when he was done.

Memory trois. I remember my Dad coming to check me out of school early when I was in high school. He was wearing a checkered, light pink dress shirt with a beautiful tie and slacks. Even at 16 years old, I knew that he was sharp dresser. And I felt proud.

Here's to another 25 years of that great headband, Padre.

Power of Presence

In the past week, three very sad things have happened to people I know. And while hearing about trials is not at all the same as living through them, those of us bystanders feel their ache and are left wondering what to do, how to reach out, and when to simply let things breathe.

In thinking about this the last few days, my mind keeps recycling back to an essay I read from "This I Believe," a collection of personal papers gathered by NPR in the 1960s and 2000s. In one essay titled "The Power of Presence," a woman wrote about hearing that her good friend's mother had died and her conflict in not wanting to intrude on her friend's grief while also not wanting to leaving her alone with it. Someone finally told the woman to go to the hospital, to just be there with her friend. Since that moment, the woman wrote, "I have not hesitated to be in the presence of others for whom I could 'do' nothing. 'Being with' another person carries with it a silent power. [I am] repeatedly struck by the healing power of connection created by being fully there in the quiet understanding of another. In it, none of us are truly alone."

However much we'd like, sometimes there is nothing we can do for someone who is hurting; we can only be. We cannot remove their deep ache or real fears; we can only bear those feelings alongside them, as a silent but fully present companion.

So here is to our efforts to help those we love—not by removing what they feel, but by standing by them while they feel it.

I Hope

As I am sure most of us are, I am still gathering my thoughts for the new year. Most everyone I speak to has this tangible, yet unexplainable feeling that 2013 will bring great things, like we can almost taste it in the air. Some people I know will be having babies; some want their businesses to thrive; some want to make more of a difference where they're serving; some want to finish the year in love, to bring in 2014 by someone's side.  

 

I too feel hopeful for the coming year. Maybe some things will change; maybe nothing will change; maybe some tough times are ahead. But taking the words from my favorite story, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies." So maybe the best thing we can take into the new year, whether the wishes we squeeze tight in our chests come true or not, is sustained hope. Hope for happiness; hope for goodness to come to the people we love; hope that the things we want most in our lives will be closer to our attainment or, in their continued absence, that we will feel peace. And most importantly, hope that we'll take every opportunity, ride every roller coaster twice, so that we can look back 12 months from now and know we did our best. Or, even more, that we lived our best.

 

"I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain...I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams...

....I hope."