I'm on the edge of Glory

For those of you that don't know, that is a Lady Gaga song... Edge of Glory - a song that our family is a bit obsessed with right now. I have an entire essay (vaguely outlined) inside me about how much I respect and adore Lady Gaga, and how if I can feel this way (as an older, mature, fairly "formed" female) I imagine you can multiply that by a million and barely score the surface of the desperate adoration experienced by millions of 12-20 year old women.

But that's a story for another day. Currently, I live with a (3-days-shy of) 2 year old who may simultaneously be Lady Gaga's biggest, youngest fan... and the ruin of her in my eyes. Milo*** won't let it go. He loves her. Her NEEDS her. And the little monster drives a hard bargain. When it comes to nagging us to play her music, he has the attention span and tenacity of Jane Goodall in the jungle. All he cares to listen to is Lady Gaga. And he is insistent. And I know you are thinking, "How can he know??? What does he really know about it???" But he does and he gets pissed if we try to listen to any other music. He acts heartbroken as if all other music is a compilation of dissonant chords and harmful to his dance-party way of life. For now, his parents are equally stubborn, and when we can't take another 50 rounds or 50 miles of Lady Gaga at the audio helm, we are getting used to listening to all other music with Milo screaming in the background:
LADY GAGA... LADY GAGA... PLEASE, MOMMY, MAMA... NO... NOW... GAGA...GAGA...WAAAAAAAAAHHH

(It goes on and on).

So, the title of the post also relates to my mood these days. I'm a little off-kilter; not sleeping enough; doing my best to balance. Finding myself needing to write more, but not writing. Finding myself needing to eat less, but eating like cRaZy. Finding myself wanting to exercise, but not turning the machine into high gear.

Despite what you just read, I'm pretty damn content with this life we are living right now. I am full of gratitude. I am amazed by my wife and our sons and basking in their glow. BUT... I am experiencing a fog of apprehension, and that familiar angst that comes with waiting too intently for the other shoe to drop.

The summer is fading, but it has been quite wonderful. Despite the fact that we experienced an earthquake (my first) and a tropical storm in the span of 5 days, we've had tremendous weather.

We’ve spent a lot of time this summer swimming and playing (and eating food) with friends and family… Some of that food has been seasonally fresh and healthy, and some of it char-grilled, processed, fried, and yummy (but very much the opposite of “good for you”- unless you are counting the “good for the soul” excuse that I keep coming back to.) We've had some terrific vacations: Ohio in July, Rhode Island in August...

This last week, though has found me in a bit of an angst-y, Don't-look-down-you've got-too far to fall melancholy.

To be fair, it's about to be autumn and I have a history of angst-y autumns at various times in my life. At this latitude, in this hemisphere in September and October, there is a very specific change in the angle of sunlight. The time of sunset sprints back toward the afternoon. It is still “summer” during the day, but the temperature plummets 20 degrees by a few hours after dark. You can close your eyes and smell the air (before more than a dozen leaves have changed color) and know you are breathing the first breaths of autumn. You could be in 80 degree sunshine, but know that shifting glare on the horizon means that the summer warmth will dissipate after dark.

Today is September 11th. I just finished watching the season finale of True Blood (a totally f'd up TV show that I can't quit) and about 2 hours of 9/11 "never forget" coverage. And I can't help but wonder, who is that slogan for? Isn't forgetting required a little in order to heal. I got my first glimpse of the WTC memorial and I just sort of burst into tears- it was the visual of the pools- water plunging down into the footprint of the original towers. I couldn't help but think of those people that jumped. I'm not one to get overly sentimental, but something about firefighters dying will always cause me to come a little unglued I think.

It's not just Sept 11th...

Last week, a 4 1/2 year old boy (a friend of a friend's kid) drowned in a neighbor's pool. The parents are a lesbian couple. The kids were with a sitter at the time of the accident. Feel the weight of that devastation for a moment.

Next week, the trial is about to begin for the second man who was caught in the act of, and then confessed to, robbing, pummeling, sexually assaulting, and murdering our friends one summer night in their own home FOUR years ago. But until the end of this trial we have to keep saying he "allegedly" did these things. His team of lawyers seems even more desperate and untrustworthy as he has shown himself to be. I know they have their job to do. But this guy is the one that is going show himself to be some kind of real SOB and I know you are going to have to put up with a little ranting from me in the coming weeks...

Then, there's Jake*** and Milo*** with their impressive, end-of-summer tan lines, and their ever-expansive brains and sharp observations of the world, and their little perfect bodies growing out of toddler-hood and baby-hood respectively. I know they are still young, but they are already growing up. And it's hard to imagine how we will continue to keep them safe when we know so much about how things can go wrong in the world.

There was a festival in town this weekend- food, fun, crafts, music (sorry, Milo, that the Marching Band, did NOT have any Gaga). One tent set up by a local insurance company was producing "kid ID kits". While you waited there, they took photos and fingerprinted your children. I wanted to do this because I can't imagine anything scarier than needing this data and not actually having it available. The entire time I was under this tent (probably 20 minutes for both boys) I felt like I might burst into tears. It was so anxiety producing to complete a kit that would help us if one of the boys disappeared, that it was actually hard not to mutter "never mind" and just run away from there. I felt as if someone was choking me and telling me a really sad story at the same time.

But you should see Milo*** in gymnastics class... and you should see Jake*** in ballet and tap and t-ball. It's a trick of the mind to worry about what bad might happen, when there is so much good happening all around. And I think it's a fool's choice to give into worry, when there is so much celebrating to do. These are the heroic lives we lead- planning a little for the worst, but doubting it will ever come and doing so with such loving intention that, that you make your kids feel all the safety the world may or may not offer.

Not COOL!

So, Um, I deleted the blog today.

It was one of those things where you're trying to take care of business and you are trying to do it with efficiency, say like- while thinking of several other more complicated notions and processes.

Well let me start by saying, I am an author of a few blogs that I don't post to anymore. One of those is the original GSO. But that URL contained our last names, so I created this URL (that you are reading right now) and moved the GSO here. That original blog became a "THE GSO HAS MOVED" page.

SIDEBAR: I made these changes over a year now and I've gotta tell you, it never ceases to amaze me how many of you (according to Google Analytics) are still hopping over here from there!!!
I mean, that must get tired... no??? For the love of Pete, change your bookmarks, people!!!

So, I'm at work and I'm finishing up like 5 things... and for some reason, I'm thinking, "let me scratch that 'DELETE OLD BLOG' thing off my list".

Why?

i do not know.

And I check about 6 or 7 times that I'm looking at the correct page and then someone calls me and asks me a question and I click DELETE and YES, I'M SURE I WANT TO DELETE...

And then, it's there- the old one: "GSO has moved" but "GIN-SOAKED OLIVE" is gone.
In it's place is a tiny message:

your blog has been successfully deleted!

There are a few moments in life that take your breath away.

When I was a junior in college, i struggled all year with Nursing 214. I am totally making that number up- I don't remember the course number- it is irrelevant, but this was the FIRST. MAJOR.BIG.SPECIALTY course that contained: biology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, microbiology, and nutrition. Pause for a second to comprehend that- they couldn't separate those?!? They had to pile them all into one 5 credit course. I mean at least give me a shot with nutrition- but if you combine nutrition with those other crap-cakes, I will always be guessing because it will be too far down on my priority list to ever get any study time.

I was 20 years old, and i had spent 2 years living through chem and physics and other nursing pre-recs. Before that, I spent a lifetime getting As and Bs in the "advanced classes" my public school, but Nursing 214 made a little gash in the tug boat of my scholarly success early in the fall of 1993 and by December we had taken on too much water. The ship was about to go down.

Truthfully, I just didn't understand about MEMORIZATION. Until Nursing 214, I achieved great success by not really memorizing, but learning concepts well and then making educated guesses during tests. I played that 'I'm an American 20 year old' card and honestly believed my own excuse: "I'm just not that good at memorizing". It's like telling your piano teacher, "My fingers are just too short" (which I did) when both of you know that you are just too lazy to put in the practice time.

If there are any 15 to 20 year olds reading this, just cut the shit and put the time in and MEMORIZE the answers. In this example, the drugs, the bugs, the muscles, bones, enzymes, hormones, and chemical names are not "concepts to understand"; they are lists and lists of crazy-sounding, somewhat vital (to a career in health care) details that you need to cram into your head b/c even if you don't use it to save someone's life someday, it WILL be on the exam.

I needed a 70 average in that course to move on in the program, and I got a 69.4.

No. I'm not kidding.

When you went to check your final grade in Nursing 214, it was listed along with 99 others next to each of our social security numbers (I'm pretty sure they can't do that to your SS# now) and there were two numbers: the grade on the final exam, and the final course grade. According to my calculations, if I got a 72 on the final, I was home free. On the final, I got something like a 71.6%. I figured that would round up, so for a few micro-seconds, it was all relief and joy, but then my eyes moved to the next column and saw the SIXTY-NINE... POINT FOUR that revealed my semester's ACTUAL numerical average.

Bullet in the heart... devastation... sudden obstructive airway disease... sheer panic... blinking... Denial. Regret. Pain. Guilt. Remorse. Sadness. Anger. Bargaining. Dry mouth. Then metallic mouth. Then urgent sweating... possible puking... walls closing in...

I walked back to my dorm and sat in the staff office of our residence hall. Head in hands, I guess I had never really failed anything before. A test or quiz maybe, but not like this. Not- "sorry, you'll be in college for an extra year" kind of failure. They didn't last long, but my feelings bordered on sheer hopelessness. My friend Lauren stumbled upon me and without knowing what was going down, she measured her words carefully. Later (when we were laughing about my somewhat dramatic, but very physical reaction) she told me, "I just assumed someone in your family had died."

There have been other, subsequent moments that caused that NOT-ENOUGH-AIR-IN-THE-ROOM-TO-BREATHE sensation:
- When I returned my dad's call that night in October '97 and got the news about John...
- That Monday morning in July '07 when Katy called me and told me "they are all gone"...
- Watching our 3 week old baby have a seizure on the CAT Scan machine...

Yeah, I know- these are pretty extreme comparisons, but that's what I'm trying to convey here.
I deleted the M-F_ing BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It just disappeared. Gone. SIX YEARS OF WRITING. Almost all of my thoughts on our marriage, our children's lives. Nearly everything I've created (except the boys)... holy'omygod!!!

Well, before I get all dramatic, it obviously didn't happen. Blogger has a plan for idiots.
There is a button (equally small) that says,
"undelete this blog"...
So, I clicked it. And here we are.

There was some extreme relief at that point, but does anyone out there know anything about "backing up a blog"; I think I need a little insurance over here.

Armed gunmen

I'm on the plane, coming home from CA.

Last night I told myself I wouldn't write about this on the blog for a lot of reasons that I will expand on below, but today- I realize I have to... Because that is what my heart wants and what my brain needs; and this space is at least a little to give my heart and brain a tiny bit more of what they want.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a text from my sister: “Did you talk to mom today?”

Pretty benign, right? But I knew immediately that something had happened.

Quickly, quickly- as my stomach was dropping- I considered some possibilities: a diagnosis for someone close? My grandmother didn't wake up? An accident?

Web (text): She's okay

Me (text): What happened?

Web (text): She walked in on a bank robbery

Ugggh... texting ends and I call her cell phone.

So, my mom doesn't like to put a lot of things out there. And my blog is probably not how she wants a lot of people to find out about this surreal, scary, personal thing that happened to her. But that's what it is to have kids – they are always taking your stuff and misusing it...

Mom went into the bank and whistles and bells went off in her head when she didn't see any line of customers or any bank tellers at the counter. In the few seconds it took for that neurological signal to translate into a thought, she saw a gun man, heard a shot, smelled some gun powder, heard some shouting, and left.

She left the bank... running... after a shot was fired... from a handgun...

She said, she didn't know what was going on. She said she thinks her brain couldn't process the foreign inputs and stimulus. She just ran out the door...

Holy shit.

I want to laugh. I want to cry. I don't know how to explain what I am even feeling about this, let alone what she must be going through. I mean, it seems like the man (there were two of them, but she only saw one) didn't even know she had walked in to the bank. Her instincts must have told her that they hadn't seen her yet, because she wouldn't have run out if she thought that would have put her in more danger. Right?!? The BALLS on this woman!!! To just know to get the hell out of there...

Once a patient told me: “It's okay to be liberal when you are young, because you're optimistic and have a forgiving heart... but as you grow older, only a fool doesn't grow more conservative.” At the time, I wasn't sure what brought that tid-bit of advice out of him, but I knew what he meant: I'm a person that believes in rehabilitative punishment, believes that a majority of violent crimes are committed by mentally ill or extra-ordinarily desperate individuals; that poverty, racism, class-ism, and decreased educational opportunities contribute to imbalances in wealth and power that make circumstances ripe for us to dehumanize and commit crimes against each other. It's not that I empathize with criminals, or excuse crimes, I tend to want to see individual events and experiences, though, and I tend to NOT want to generalize the intentions of others...

All these years, I never forgot what that patient said and knew he was probably right. I've sort of been watching myself to see when and if it would happen – me growing more conservative in my attitudes. I'm gay and anyone that reads this blog knows where I fall on the political spectrum, but the thing is, I'm definitely shifting when it comes to crime.

I guess I'm just getting kind of sick of assholes flashing and firing guns to scare people. To scare and threaten people I love... or worse...

Who do these people think they are?!? It isn't enough what happened to our friends in their own home 3 years ago??? It isn't enough that we were just starting to relax in our homes after dark???

A moment should be taken to thank God and the Fates and Furies and Winds that this blog post ends up being a meandering, insignificant “blah, blah, blah,” instead of a horrifying recounting of a violent crime. Because I can't bear to even consider what could have happened, I'll focus instead on admiring and praising my mom for rocking out in every crisis scenario I've ever seen her face.

Steady we go. Trying to keep each other safe, pretending that we control our destinies, clinging to those we love, trying not to be afraid of the dark. Or in this case, the broad light of day.

I love you, Mama- I think you are very wonderful and brave!

Justice is not vengeance

A jury sentenced a killer to death today in Connecticut on all 6 capital felony convictions.
The result was the only one that could have been reached.
It was just and as Dr. Petit said, "Justice is not vengeance."

Still, this result means nothing. It will not undo one thing that was done.
Nothing will bring back J, H, or M.
Nothing will change what was lost.
Nothing will give back what was taken.
Nothing will fix one of the thousands of things that was broken.

sign. uggh. yuck.

The first Trial

The verdict is in- 16 guilty counts and 1 not guilty (on the charge of 1st degree arson).

I'm glad for these results... but still heart sick.

Now the jury must decide the sentence.

1148 days

3 years and 2 months...

In our lives, since that day:
- one house sold
- one house purchased
- 3 anniversaries
- two children born
- three family surgeries- 1 c-section, 1 tonsillectomy, 2 sets of ear tubes
- Stitches put in all of us except the little one who needed a head CT, MRI, several lumbar punctures, and a whole bunch of other nonsense.

1148 days and nights of life and love and laughter, stress and grief, hunger and fullness, exhaustion and rest...
Countless conversations...
Weddings and vacations...
Drinking and dancing...
Playing, tickling, swimming, and nights at the pool...
Breast feeding, potty training, falling down and getting back up...
Tears of sadness and of happiness...
Many injuries have healed and scars formed,
but still, there is one big, unresolved, sucking wound...

We try to stay back from this. We try to have faith, have hope, and not get caught up in the fear and sadness that a tragedy like this leaves behind. We pray- for peace, for justice, for the man that survives- the man that exists but does not really exist, since that day...

There are things that can never be explained, repaired, or forgiven...
We are not vengeful people, but there are things for which vengeance was invented...
Senseless things for which there is no satisfactory atonement, nor any appropriate emotional response...

The next few weeks should be filled with joy: There are many things to celebrate in September. But our emotions will be layered, textured, and likely raw in the coming month...

The first trial is scheduled to start tomorrow.

Go to bed, already.

Tomorrow, we will try to spend the day demonstrating pleasantness in the midst of our anxiety and discomfort.

Tomorrow, we will try to remember the spirit of women who were pretty damn good role models even before the mantle of sainthood was placed on their memories.

Tomorrow, we will let our bodies and minds fight it out... Our minds want to be in charge of our emotions, but grief and anger have a way of marking you physically. And "the body" sometimes has a more accurate memory than even "the memory".

Tomorrow, we will cherish our children.
(A little more than we do every other day.)
Tomorrow, we will try to be gentle with each other.
Tomorrow, we will try to be generous and a little more patient than we usually need to be in our interactions with others...

But TONIGHT, before I go to bed, I'm going to check every window and every door (like Katy made me promise to do) to be sure they are locked. And I'm going to say a silent, but heartfelt "fuck you" to the psychotic criminals who killed our friends 3 years ago...

Then I'm going to wash the destructive anger off my face, and brush the bile off of my teeth, and try to shake the gnawing anxiety from my core. And THEN, I'm going to hold my wife close- hoping that my love and concern can keep bad dreams at bay- and trying to convey to her through my actions that no matter what, I'm here with her and I love her... and I'm sorry for the losses she has endured.

------------
Our church benediction:

Go out into the world in peace
Have courage
Hold onto what is good
Return to no person evil for evil
Strengthen the fainthearted
Support the weak
Help the suffering
Honor all beings
Amen.

Simply the best

My birthday present last June was tickets to last night's Tina Turner concert.

Katy took me out to eat (accompanied by Connecticut's most popular and widely-read music critic and his lady-friend... She's gonna love that that's her title.) We had a wonderful meal. We opted out of stealing the bread bucket that we liked from the restaurant and then we hit the XL (Don't ask me who owns the civic center now) for some ass-kickin' music.

I love Tina Turner. She rocks the world and she is the real reason I want to get to know Oprah better. B/c I think Oprah can put me in touch with Tina. The concert did not disappoint. There were some noticeable breaks and a 30 minute intermission where we envisioned the 69 year old icon hooked up to a little oxygen and perhaps IV hydration with some PT massaging her limbs backstage. Katy and I both woke up sore from the clapping, screaming, and dancing around we did in our seats (they were GREAT seats btw) so we can only imagine how fit this lady is to put forth the show she did.

As we were listening, cheering, smiling, enjoying the diversity in the audience, laughing that some of our peeps coincidentally had tickets only a few rows away in the same section, it was a celebration of the most pure variety. At some point, katy turned to me, grabbed my hand and said with a squeeze, "I have a great life." I agreed: "me too."

This past week has been a little of a time warp for me. The work week flew by, but my life outside of work seemed to be infinitely full of not-so-mundane events. My mind is never really away from our friend Adam who is hospitalized in a wreck of a (reversible but) devastating and terrifying diagnosis. Our friend IBO who is maybe pregnant again but nervous about what happened last time and in a good amount of physical discomfort. Our friends in Brooklyn who are waiting for their twins to gestate fully and will now be waiting on "bed rest" for the next 8 to 10 or 12 weeks or so. My friend LCD who's been trying to coordinate emergency care for her father in law. Then there's KK, whose mom started her first round of chemo... should I go on?

At 32 Our Street, JB this week has seemed to blossom yet again, somehow increasing his sweetness, his understanding of things, and his ability to interact with the world. He is a joy. He has an ever growing sense of humor. He is getting physically stronger and more coordinated.

I think there is an older version of me that would have perseverated on some of the difficult things our friends are going through right now as compared to our life right now, and tended toward the, "some bullshit is bound to ruin everything" state of numbness: Fear of the other shoe dropping, a dash of guilt, and a general discomfort about living in such a degree of contented happiness. I feel encased in and embalmed with gratitude and a kind of warm empathy. I do not feel outside of the difficult times that my friends are going through. Though we are not in their shoes, we feel sad and worried and stressed a little with them. But our friends are also the type that weave their blessings and gratitude into their woes. And I am somehow with them, sending positive energy without "steeling myself" or making it about my anxieties and powerlessness.

Katy and I and our friends are statistically (literally) some of the luckiest people to ever crawl the earth. Considering the nation, the wealth, the opportunities, education, and experiences that we have been exposed to, from a broad view it is hard to imagine what there is to not be blissed out about... But at the same time, we (and our friends) are no strangers to tragedy either.

Last night, beaming, I looked around the arena and realized that the last time I saw Jennifer P was in that room. Her husband, kind of lost to us now, is facing another Christmas without her or their kids. I stayed there with her, but pushed us both out of that "last time" and back into the joy and the driving pulse of a Tina Turner concert. It was not as much to deny sorrow as to bring her memory into a place that is about life and not about death. That is about Joy and not about grief. That is about living in the peace of a moment not the anxiety of the past or the future.

There was a lot of talk this fall about Hope. In my opinion, the word got knocked around a little, and walked away with yellowing bully-bruises and the caked on mud of mockery. I can't help but feel, though, that a climate of hope is what gets people through not only difficult times but happy, peaceful times too. Hope as a premise works in any season. The promise that things will change means that luck will run out, but luck will blossom again too. Time might appear as your enemy and then will rescue you out of the deepest hole; a gift for healing or rest or adventure. The musculature of hope is love and friendship that will hold you up when you can't stand (or feel your legs.) Hope exists in the web of community that is built not only when you offer to help but more substantially when you find yourself brave enough to ask for it.

Tina Turner is an icon not exclusively for her talents or powerful vocal presence, but her lasting power. Also, the humanity and personal frailty that she chose to share with the world and her fans... Her guts. Everyone's got at least a little of that inside of them, and sometimes you need some appropriate music to help drive it out.

Thanks for the wonderful night, baby. ily.

Sad Anniversary

At just about this moment last year, katy called me at work to say,
"Dr P called out sick."
"What?!?" I responded in mock alarm.
That was so unlike him, it was newsworthy...

Little did we know that the term "newsworthy" was about to become the central, understated adjective. Nor did we know that at that moment they were all still alive, but not for much longer.

More updates followed: "I guess he's in W. Hospital... He must have had a heart attack or something b/c otherwise they would have taken him here... We can't get in touch with Jen..."

Then the next call: "They're gone. Jen and the girls are gone."

At eight months pregnant, I was just getting the feeling that "everything was gonna be alright." In terms of our baby and the impending delivery, my fears were turning into confidence and excitement.

In a flash I was weakly shouting into the phone: "What do you mean?!? What are you talking about?!?" I couldn't hear that she didn't have all the details. My instincts told me to get more out of her and tell her, "Get out of there- GET OUT OF THERE- Get OUT of THAT office..." Fight or Flight inside of me translated to: Her safety is my safety; my safety is our baby's safety; and I swear my first cogent thought was, "If this is some kind of mob hit, her location is next."

Get. Out.
Hit.the.deck.
And the crawl the fuck out of there.
NOW!

Admittedly, I was starting to lose it... Katy, stunned, trying to hold herself together, and momentarily regretting her decision to tell me this over the phone, asserted that she was safe, we were safe, and perhaps I should call my mother. I did just that and was crying before I even got the information out to my mom. We didn't know who did this, why they did it, or if more things would follow. Since learning the answers to these questions, I realize that I was seeking to believe that the societal contract had not been broken. i was clinging to a sense of normalcy that would never exist again. Somehow the what, why, how should have comforted us and provided a measure of security; but coping in the aftermath of a violent, truly random crime teaches you one or two things about how false any "sense of security" might be. There's no truth to the perception that if you "follow the rules," you and your family will be safe.

The last thing JHP ever said to me was, "I can't wait until this baby is born." I thought about that over and over again in the days after her death. The last thing I ever expected was to be attending her funeral with him still inside of me. That day, I'll never forget, the baby was going NUTS inside of me. I don't know if he was responding to my stress hormones, or if the length of time I was seated made us both uncomfortable, or if it was just his normal amount of activity that I perceived differently. It was one of the only times in my pregnancy that I could barely (mentally) handle that there was a thing inside of me... I was aching with anxiety and needed my space and this kid was crawling, and scratching and groping me from the inside. I wanted to scream... run screaming, but that was obviously due to more things than the baby.

We don't talk about it much. Especially katy. She learned her lesson early when i sent her to therapy and when she brought up the reason for her visit, her therapist started her own diatribe about how hard this has been for her and her family. This has been a prominent topic all over our state this year, but Katy has rarely opened up about it. She has endured a year of pt visits full of sobbing elderly men and their vengeful wives. The detailed depictions of revenge out of the mouths of grandmoms stuck with her in a more upsetting way than the wordless crying of the grandpops. Their doctor's family had been killed and they needed to talk about it even more than they needed their prescriptions refilled. At times too exhausted by her own grief to protest, Katy sat on the sidelines listening, to her patients, to her pregnant wife, even to her therapist- one part of her not willing to compete for support or "grief status" and another part expertly compartmentalizing.

We still shy away from acknowledging that this happened to us because, I mean... it didn't happen to us. But, it kind of did. In a completely startling way, the way the WTC coming down on sept 11th happened to "all of us," the torture and murder of this family happened to everyone who's heard the story. There seems to be something disgusting about "jockeying for position," but if we can ignore that for a moment- this did happen to our family in a much more personal way than to the towns' people in general.

Our friends are gone- so it turns our stomach a little more to see them in still-frame on the TV, and it burns our guts when we hear people say, "He's doing better than I expected." We go a little crazy when we hear ass-hats assert what they would do ("I would just kill myself") or what they "would have done" if they were the dad or were in the house. And we generally ache for what will never be- dancing together at weddings, celebrations of graduations, loads of un-delivered jokes and advice...

Over and over this year I've tried to stop imagining what it must have been like for them in that house. They must have at some point (fear aside, torment aside, danger aside) been thinking, "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!?
THIS CAN NOT BE ACTUALLY HAPPENING."

When I can't help myself out of the semi-destructive mindset of "What must have been going on in there," I seek some glimmer of comfort in the nightmare. i find what I seek in the idea that an extreme sense of irony and disbelief might have crawled into their minds at certain points. A break from fear or pain.

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!?
THIS CAN NOT BE ACTUALLY HAPPENING."

The mind's way of looking for the punchline of the joke. I don't know why that comforts me, but it is something about the human spirit transcending misery and taking a moment to normalize the abnormal, to acknowledge and protest a glitch in the matrix...

It's raining now- intermittently drizzling and pouring- just like it was on the 23rd last year...
Katy and I will spend the day separately- occasionally considering the insanity, of what has happened to our friends and by extension to us. We will spend a lot of the day trying not to think about it; or pretending that we are not thinking about it.

But just to put it out there, we miss these women. We hope they are somewhere having some fun. We hope they are watching over BPJr. We hope he can feel our good intentions towards him... we miss him too. He's done a good job of preserving their legacies. When we think about our friends, we find ourselves trying not to think about how they died, but how we can work like they did to make the world a better place...

Mental status update

This will be brief because (as I have said) we are on vacation, and the point is to chill and "escape" a little, but it would be dishonest to talk about celebrations and home renovations and perfect OB visits without also talking about the other reason there haven't been many posts in the last few weeks. The last time I wrote about about katy's boss, I was still unaware of the magnitude and the media attention that the tragedy would warrant. We rarely mention it to anyone without being told that "everyone is affected and traumatized" about it... I was even told by one of my friends, "If you had children, this would be even harder for you- it would be more devastating..."

WHAT?!? whatever... anyway...

Another conversation that strangers like to have is the WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WERE HIM tangent. This usually involves a lot of people impetulently stylizing an outcome based on empathy... as if you perseverate for a long or a short time on a man's tragic loss, you might know what it feels like for him or you might imagine a course of action if it happened to you... as if detached logic or other rational and ordinary life experiences might bring you to an understanding of the recreation of routine life after the unimaginable....

This invariably leads to many claims and projections: "I would have done XXX inside that house..."
Right. Thanks. If that makes you feel better... thinking that you could have stopped this...

"That's why I have a gun..."
Fine, but that would not have changed anything in this case...

Or my favorite: "I would just kill myself."
Really? How brave of you to be so convinced you'd have the will or strength to live or die.

I get moody. Because it seems invasive to focus on the WHAT IF of reordering your own possible grief, in a situation that is inconceivable and has not happened to your family. Instead of just sadly acknowledging the limitations of empathy and quietly hoping for some peace to settle on this horrific-ness.

Katy and her colleagues at work are doing amazingly well at holding things together and taking care of each other. It was nice to see many of them in our yard this weekend- to share some conversations and be together outside of a professional setting.

When we got to p-town, we walked 3 blocks behind houses on quiet, darkened streets to get to the center of town, and I admitted to my wife, "I feel scared for some reason." I am not used to the sensation, to be honest. I am used to general apprehension or slight anxiety. But I rarely feel vulnerable to physical attack. Kt, wisely pointed out that we haven't really been anywhere new without other people around since everything happened in the Pet.it's home that night.

This is not our tragedy, but we are close to this violence, this evil, this devastating loss. I keep replaying the few conversations that I ever had with jen. Katy keeps forgetting that jen and the girls are gone. All of it is happening in the context of high publicity that has friends, neighbors, and the general public feeling vulnerable and therefore justified in all of their opinions and judgements of all the players involved. Kt leans toward physical illness every time some patient or passerby describes the details of an imagined vengeance s/he would like visited on the perpetrators of these crimes. Not because she disagrees necessarily, but b/c she is sensitive to images of violence. Even when justifiable, vengeful retribution sickens her because she recognizes the that one violent act is not entirely unlike another.

I watch her- amazed; because she is so capable and multi-dimensional and protective without letting displaced fear and anger and grief consume her life right now.

We know this is not our tragedy. But we are affected and forever changed. We are here for after the photo and videographers go home to see if there is anything we can do to help pick up the pieces. We are willing to sit silently in this grief and loss for a while with a friend and mentor- if there is any way we can.

Harry Potter

Finally finished #7 on Thursday. The Deathly Hallows came to us at a bizarre time.

I'm gonna have to read it again. I started it Sunday, July 22nd which ended up being the night this happened... I read it not in chapters, but groups of pages at a time- in between periods of extreme sadness, anxiety, hospital visits, memorial services, and sleeplessness. I had about 24 more pages to go when we were deciding whether or not to go to the hospital b/c we couldn't feel the baby moving...

Long and short of it is that is was a strange time to be reading a book about dark and good magic, that is about growing up, overcoming impossible odds, and symbolizes the end of an era. I thought the book ended the series well, but I think I'm gonna have to read it again to say anything more.

Ramblings

My sleep cycle is so messed up...
Last night, I woke up three times. When I woke the last time at 3am, I stayed up until 5am and then slept 2 more hours until 7am. One of the times I woke up, I was laying there feeling my baby "kick" wildly (though it really seemed like my baby was maniacally techno dancing) when katy started sobbing in her sleep.

It was awful.
I stroked her and whispered that she was safe and she soothed and settled easily.

The night before, I had the first bad dream I've had in a while. (I just wrote out what I remember from it, but decided to erase it- too graphic and un-necessary for the context of the post...) The point is, I'm up again at hours too dark to get anything done on my to do list- lawns are hard to mow in the dark and the "little lady" in my life doesn't deserve to wake up to me vacuuming the living room or cleaning the attic at 4am.

We've been experiencing tremendous anxiety, inner turmoil, and sadness. We are truly appreciative of our life, our relationship with each other, our active and developing baby, and the people we are blessed to call family and friends. Still, it is amazing how you can't talk yourself out of the melancholy and apprehension that tragedy leaves in its wake.

I see Katy fall apart at the sight of a friend and mentor who has lost nearly everything... I ache for him, I ache for her. She weeps for the 3 women that the world has lost. She weeps because she knew them and misses them. She weeps for him because she knows there is little that can be done to help- except to bare witness. She weeps for the loneliness he will need to meander through. She weeps because he will never be the same. She weeps because though he is forever changed, he is not gone- he has been spared- and though that may be the greatest cause of his grief right now, it is one of the causes of our gratitude. She weeps... but most of the weeping is private, inside herself, without tears. I weep (sometimes with more tears than her) for all these reasons too... and for her- my beloved, to see her strength and beauty, the way she looks out for me, and the way she fully experiences this pain- it touches me in a manner that is physically exhausting.

I have seen many examples of class, strength, dignity and beauty in this life. I have been raised by and alongside people I truly love and respect. I have married into families of strength and kindness. I have friends that would tear down walls to care for me and help me stand tall. I have a wife who is 100% raw, hardened intelligence and (somehow also) 100% kind-hearted, intuitive generosity.

And this week, I have witnessed some of the best that the human spirit might offer. In the wake of terrorism, I have seen faith that is not self-righteous, preachy, or arrogant. I have spoken with broken hearts that have chosen humility as a coping mechanism, patience as a plan of action, and gratitude to anesthetize their grief and vulnerability. I am sleepless because it has left me spinning, reeling... I am in my body feeling thoughts and emotions as aches and muscular skeletal throbbing. I feel Kicking and Screaming inside of me that is not my imagination. I am growing a son that I know - even at this early stage - is OF me and us, but not mine or ours... That the promise we make to protect him is only what our best intentions can provide.

Maybe I am sleepless because the dark is little scarier right now, or because I'm afraid of wasting time in sleep. Or because I worry of all I have to do. Or because life is the opposite of intellectual and "normal" right now. Or because for most of the day and night, it feels like my son is a one-man-marching-band inside my womb.

Or maybe it's just because I don't sleep all that well.

Very bad things

Yesterday we found out that katy's boss' family died in a break-in, robbery, arson attack.

We don't know much, the details of the story are still unfolding, but we do know that he was beaten very badly, and his wife and 2 daughters are all dead. This is clearly one of the most surreal and tragic things that could possibly have happened. We are grief-stricken and more than a little freaked out. We met them last summer when we were invited to attend the summer picnic for the job that katy was about to start. We immediately felt welcomed by this family and the large work-family they were the center of.

Assuming that katy would work at this job for a long time, we looked forward to many times together with their family... There was no need to rush to get to know them better. We attended a few Uconn basketball games with them; we planned on having them over for dinner after the baby was born. Without realizing I was making these plans, I envisioned everyday socializing and big events that we would share: their younger daughter maybe babysitting on occasion and probably us attending the wedding of their older daughter. I imagined his wife cooing over our little one and us soliciting parenting tips from them.

It is strange. And that is an inadequate word.

Kt's boss is still in the hospital- recovering physically will likely be the easiest part of whatever comes next for him. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.