The Kids Are All Right

After a combined two months in the hospital, (three different stays spread out over two different buildings during one summer), one of the things I was looking forward to most was just being a regular ol’ Dad. Our daughters were forced to fend for themselves during much of their summer break and even if they weren’t scraping up road kill and cooking it over a makeshift fire, they were left to their own devices far more than normal.

Pizza, when they weren’t fed by an extremely diverse and caring team, was on the menu for lunch and dinner more often than not.

But more importantly, with Marci handling all the revenue generating, the girls had to get themselves places, entertain themselves, take care of stuff they normally wouldn’t have to, all the while living in more of a vacuum than ever before. And yet somehow they thrived. They grew; they expanded their horizons and they reached deep finding better versions of themselves, (at least that’s what I’m telling myself).

So last night’s marching band performance, (which some people still mistakenly call a football game), and away diving meet were a great time for us to just be parents, take some snapshots, ohh and ahh over their performances and drive like crazy between high schools because they both happened at roughly the same time. We loved it.

It’s the stuff I’ve taken for granted that gets me. But looking back over my life I can’t say I’ve ever truly taken the girls for granted. Skye coming out of the womb with a life threatening eColi bacteria infection and Taylor having to wear a hip/leg brace for the first year of her life tended to make us realize quite early how precious life can be. Daddy getting a freak blood disease out of nowhere just magic-marker underlined life’s wonder and fragility.

But look at these two last night. Do they look like girls whose infancy was marred by extreme limitations? Listen to them upstairs — first laughing together, now arguing — are they anything but normal, healthy teens? In some very palpable way, they serve as reminders that I can get through anything and must get through everything in order to remain their proud papa.

There only looks to be one more short interlude where I’ll be incarcerated in the health system, (for my own good, of course!). Then my life, and my family’s will continue along the tracks laid out long ago. I hope I’ll be the type of survivor who relishes the ordinary and grooves on the everyday. Although in all honesty, and not even with a hint of parental pride, living with these two — and their terrific mother — rarely if ever is an ordinary or everyday experience.

Comments

[Rik]

Your daughters are AMAZING (spoken slowly, emphasizing every syllable like AH-MA-ZING). It is surely a tribute to you and Marci who raised them not to depend on you but to discover their own strength. Seeing your family together is an inspiration. We see different kinds of families in the parade passing here--and they are what they have been becoming all along. A crisis reveals who and what we are--like when the music stops in musical chairs and we all scramble for a seat. Your family's strength is not linked to maintaining a regiment or routine--they go with the flow, find their own music and continue the dance of life. Ya' did good, Papa! They find their place with confidence and class--on a subway in New York City, in the energy of school activites or curled up in a chair in a corner room of an Oncology unit. “If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.” John Heywood

[Elli]

I am proud of you being proud of them! What a team!