Category: Children

Bad Weather, Children, Christmas, Events, Generations, Gratitude, Parents, Relationships, Stories, Storms, Storytelling

Christmas Stockings

gregoryjoel

I don’t know how long it took to get to Swedish Medical Center. I’d never been there before but I knew that on a normal day it was only six or seven minutes from the house. This Christmas Eve night it took hours. It didn’t, but it sure felt like it.

Our arrival turned into a blur though – out of the car with the paramedics grabbing Jennine to steady her across the snow and ice then through the ambulance bay doors and me holding a bundled-up Adrian in one arm and Jennine’s go bag and a diaper bag in the other. Suddenly we were in Labor and Delivery.

I vaguely remember the flurry of activity around Jennine as they got her settled into the labor room. A nurse said something about the labor pains coming much quicker and telling us that it shouldn’t be long now. Someone popped their head in to tell me that my Mom and Dad had a friend bringing them to the hospital in his four-wheel drive. Adrian could stay with them for the night. One problem solved anyway…

The doctor entered the room. Keep in mind that this doctor was a total stranger in a hospital we’d never been to before. He grabbed one of the labor room nurses and asked for an update, never looking or speaking to Jennine or me. That was already two strikes against him. When he groaned and walked back out of the labor room it was strike three. Jennine grabbed my hand and cried out, “Who is this guy? I don’t like him. I want my doctor. It’s all your fault we’re here”.

“It’s going to be okay. I’ll find out what’s going on”. I was a little perturbed to be assigned all the blame for the whole situation. I was pretty damned sure she was present when this whole thing started. After all, it takes two to make this process work. I didn’t ask for the blizzard either.

“Stay here, she barked about the time the latest contraction came on full force. I was thinking no problem as my hand she was gripping went numb. I wasn’t going anywhere.

The nurses finally got Jennine settled in. The monitors were all hooked up and the initial examination was over. The contractions were only three or four minutes apart and our nurse informed us she was almost fully dilated. She was a Godsend. She seemed to be the only one taking the time to pay attention to us. I wish I could remember her name. Back then I would’ve sent her a bottle of twelve-year old scotch and a thank you note.

We had been through La Maze birth classes before Adrian was born and had a refresher course back in October. We had wanted a natural childbirth – at least that’s what I reminded Jennine every time she hollered for drugs as her labor became more intense. I tried to be a calming voice of reason and help her with breathing through the contractions. Apparently, a calming voice of reason wasn’t needed nor appreciated in this situation. They finally came in to do an epidural block.

Our nurse came in and, sensing the tension, she let me know I needed to go downstairs with Adrian; that my parents were almost here. How she knew that I’m not sure as cell phones were still science fiction in 1982. She also mentioned that the doctor had been here since the night before because of the storm. “She’s in good hands.” I thanked her, grabbed Adrian, his diaper bag, and headed downstairs.

I vaguely remember giving Adrian to my mother, hugging my parents – who I hadn’t seen since they got to town – and thanking our friend Mark for getting them here and back home with my son. All I could think of was getting back upstairs. I stayed in the lobby long enough to watch them all drive off into the falling snow and ran for the elevator.

I returned to the labor room and the nurse informed me I better “gown -up”. They were taking her to the delivery room right away. We had been there maybe an hour or so. I said a silent prayer of gratitude for the guy who volunteered his Jeep, the paramedics, nurses, and even the doctor Jennine didn’t like. The time it would have taken an ambulance to arrive would have meant a home delivery. I’d like to think I could’ve done it, but I was so glad I didn’t have to find out. It was going to be okay.

Sometimes I regret not being able to remember all the details of our time in the delivery room. It went so quickly, for which I was appreciative. Jennine had the hard work, but it’s hard to see your wife in pain. The only thing I remember is the doctor saying,” It’s a healthy baby boy”. The nurse took him and cleaned him up. I’m sure they went through all the post-birth baby and mother checklist before he announced, “Here’s your son”.

The one thing I remember quite clearly is that Jennine didn’t want to take him, and the nurse handed Jeremy to me. Her reluctance to take Jeremy was, in hindsight, a red flag but more about that later. I cradled Jeremy in my arms and burst into joyful tears as I saw another beautiful son.

The nurse that had been with us all through labor and delivery took Jeremy back. She told me they were moving Jennine to the maternity ward and taking Jeremy to the nursery. Then she said, “You should try to grab some sleep until we bring Jeremy to your wife’s room. Go into the Nurse’s Lounge and there’s a couch in there to lay down on. I’ll come get you when it’s time.”

I said thank you and felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. The adrenaline coursing through my body had suddenly shut off and left me drained. It was all over and I had a new son.

I’m not sure how long I got to sleep but when our nurse returned to wake me up, I was suddenly alert and full of energy. “We’re going to bring Jeremy to her room so they’ll both there”, she said as we waited for the elevator. My excitement level made for the longest wait time ever recorded for elevator doors to open – maybe not?.

The nurse opened the door, motioned me in, and closed the door behind me. I entered the room and went to hug Jennine. I was sitting on the bed holding her hand when a maternity floor nurse entered the room with Jeremy. He was stuffed into a little Christmas stocking with a Santa cap on his head.  The nurse picked him up and handed him to Jennine. I still have the picture from all those years ago of Jennine as she held our son for the first time. Her smile radiated love and beauty filling the room as she looked into Jeremy’s eyes. A small joyful tear rolled down her cheek.

I can’t recall the rest of Christmas Day in 1982. I know my parents came back to the hospital to visit and take Adrian and I home. We planned to celebrate Christmas when Jennine and Jeremy came home the next day. My sister had spent Christmas Eve at the DFW airport before they finally cancelled all flights to Denver so she wouldn’t be with us that year and spend Christmas alone. Everything else is stored in memory sections of my brain that I no longer have access to.

I can say that it took a week-and-a-half to dig my car out and the alleyway so I could even get to the street where snowplows had left a huge pile of snow. I used my cross-country skis to get to the nearby Seven Eleven only to find bare shelves. The local media had a hay day with the “Hundred Year Blizzard of ‘82”. Everyone had opinions about the city’s response to the storm and the time it took to clear the streets; most of them beyond negative. Blame was heaped on Mayor Bill Nichols, who had been the only Mayor I’d known since moving to Denver in 1969, costing him his re-election later that year.

None of it really made a difference to me. We had another son. Every parent sees their new child as the most beautiful baby ever. The truth is, if it’s a vaginal birth all babies look like little aliens, but they appear much differently to the parents that waited so patiently for them. I had just received the best Christmas present ever and life would never be the same.

Children, Choices, Community, Faith, Gratitude, Serenity, Simplicity, The Holidays, Thoughts From the Porch, Wellness

Almost Christmas…

gregoryjoel

Here it is the middle of December, and I can’t quite remember when my last post was. Much has transpired since then – Margaret has had her neck surgery and after a two week stay in a rehabilitation facility, is finally home for the holidays. She’s well on her way to recovery. I missed having her here with me. I missed feeling her presence even when I’m out in the yard or at my desk and she’s in another room. There’s something calming about being able to walk into the living room and see the love of my life. I’m truly blessed by her presence and love.

My step kid moved out at the end of November. It wasn’t the most amicable situation, but Margaret and I know it was best for all concerned. I’ve come home to happy puppies (okay, more big dogs than puppies) each day. The atmosphere of peace has returned to my home after several years of feeling like I was walking on eggshells, never knowing when a simple remark might be taken as major trauma. You can’t argue with someone else’s perception of reality, no matter what reality might be. I just look at both MAGA acolytes and those on the far left to see how flawed perceptions deepen the divide between us all. (to be continued)

Bad Weather, Birthdays, Children, Choices, Christmas, Love, Marriage, Parents, Thoughts From the Porch

Christmas 1982 – The Beginning

gregoryjoel

It was Denver two days before Christmas in 1982. The due date for the birth of our second son was the twenty-third. I was on Christmas break from classes at the university and Jennine (my first wife) had just started her maternity leave. We put Adrian, our twenty-month-old son, to bed and put the final touches on the gifts being wrapped as we watched a holiday movie together.

Jennine went to get ready for bed and I stepped out onto the front porch to check the weather. The forecast was for a couple of inches of snow. My parents had flown in from Texas the day before and I was hoping for a white Christmas together and to celebrate the birth of our second son. The air was cold and crisp, but only partly cloudy. I didn’t put much stock in accurate weather forecasts and the coming snow. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Jennine and I had married two years before and neither of us were ready for such a major step on life’s journey. She was nineteen. I was twenty-two. We had met at work and dated a short while before she was to leave for college in California. A couple of weeks before her departure she informed me that she was pregnant and not to worry, she had already scheduled an abortion with a clinic in Boulder. I reacted with what I thought was the most honorable way I could – I asked her to marry me. She didn’t say yes right away, but after a couple of days we both decided that’s what we were going to do.

To make a long story short, we were married in August of 1980 and had our first son, Adrian, in April of 1981. He was such a joy, and we were blessed as new parents to have a son with an easygoing personality and demeanor. However, we weren’t planning on a second one so quickly. We had moved to Texas before Adrian was born and back to Denver afterward. I had been laid off. Jennine hated Texas: probably because my job with the railroad kept me away so much. I went back to work for my old company in Denver. The first couple of years were rough. They’d started to smooth out when she found out we were expecting number two…

We lived in a small stucco house in the Washington Park section of Denver. While the surrounding homes were built in the twenties and thirties and far larger, ours was an old farmhouse built in 1890: well before Denver grew farther south. We sat on two lots of land and even still had the old sidewalk to what was the outhouse. I’m told indoor plumbing didn’t come until later. I always thought it gave the backyard a bit of character. It was definitely a talking point.

The first floor was our kitchen, living room, my study, bath, and what would have been the one bedroom originally. We had converted it to a playroom and had two bedrooms in the half-finished basement. The stairs were at the back of the house with a long picture window across the back wall. We had purchased the house the year before and had great remodeling plans, but that would be a lengthy process. Jennine and I both worked full-time – her at a bank and I at a Trust company – but I was finishing my degree and had little time to work on the house. I often joke that I went to college on the ten-year plan.

It had been a long day for both of us, so falling asleep quickly wasn’t a problem. The bed was warm and comfortable. I kissed Jennine good night and curled up for a long winter’s night. At least I thought so…

Now before I tell you the rest of the story, please know that I really am a caring, loving husband. However, it takes me a while to wake up and get my bearings when awakened from a deep sleep – even in extreme situations. So, when I was shaken awake, and Jennine said she thought she was in labor I grunted and rolled over to look at the alarm clock. It read 4:12 AM. I mumbled something about a false labor, told Jennine to time the contractions to be sure, and rolled back over. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could’ve done. Jennine shook me again and yelled “you time the contractions”. I was awake then!

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I have to go to the bathroom first”. I climbed out from under the soft warmth of our goose-down comforter and started toward the stairs. “When was your last contraction?”, I queried as I walked out of our room. I didn’t wait for the response.

I went to the restroom and started back down the steps, and I noticed it wasn’t very dark outside. The cloud cover and the falling snow reflected the city lights and I could clearly see the chain link fence around our backyard – or at least part of it. The snow had begun falling sometime after we went to bed and all I could see was the top foot of the fence. She probably is in labor, I thought to myself. The idea of shoveling snow felt like a major inconvenience at 4:30 in the morning.

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Pexels.com

I took care of my business, drank a big glass of water, and returned downstairs to the bedroom. Jennine turned away as I crawled back into bed. “I think it’s just false labor”, she grumbled as I pulled the soft comforter around my neck.

 “Well, let’s time them just to be safe”. I was a tad more awake and far more empathetic than I had been just ten minutes before. Sure enough, we timed her next few contractions, and they were extremely erratic. She wasn’t in labor. She drifted off to sleep. I couldn’t now that I was fully awake, so I eased myself back out of bed so as not to wake Jennine and went back upstairs to make coffee and spend some quiet time alone.

Children, Choices, Consequences, Emotional Health, Family, Generations, Grandchildren, Grief, Recovery, Relationships, Storytelling, Thoughts From the Porch, What Can I Do, Writing

The Way It Was…

gregoryjoel

It’s hard to believe September is already here. Labor Day is the unofficial beginning of Fall so the temperatures here have dropped to the nineties instead of the triple digits and we might even celebrate Labor Day with some rain. I’m hoping but it is Texas after all…

I haven’t written much lately. The heat and oppressive humidity dulled the thinking, and work has taken all the energy I may have. Getting out of sweat-soaked clothes and laying in front of the air conditioning has been norm the last month or so. It’s also the end of our fiscal year at work so evenings are filled with year-end reports and audits. It’s rare to stay awake through the ten pm weather report but that’s okay. The forecast doesn’t change in August. It’s just going to be hot and dry.

My youngest grandkids started school in the middle of last month. Things have changed since I was young. The school year started the day after Labor Day and ended the day before Memorial Day. We didn’t have Monday holidays, so we celebrated them on whatever day of the week they fell on. It seems a bit cruel to send kids back to school while the swimming pools are still open, but I digress…

I have had the privilege of picking my grandkids up from school for a couple of years now. My oldest, Baillie, is working in Alaska, but both of the others are in high school, although they attend different schools. Lucas is close enough to walk to and from Pascal High School where he’s a freshman this year. I get to pick him up on the days he stays late.

Izabella was accepted into the Visual Performing Arts program at I.M. Terrell Academy, which is only two minutes away from the farm. I.M. Terrell was the black high school for many years in Fort Worth when schools were still segregated. Moreover, it’s Ms. Opal Lee’s alma mater. She’s thrilled that Iza is there. It hasn’t hurt Iza that her grandfather works for Terrell’s most famous alumnus.

I’m reminded daily how much I love my grandkids and how much I miss their father. He would (and I’m sure that on another plane he is) be so proud of them. I hope he would be proud of me as well for being there for them. I often wasn’t there for him when he was that age. Addiction has stolen so much from us. It stole both my son’s father and my grandkid’s father. The only difference is that I get the opportunity to make living amends. Jeremy, my son, lost that opportunity on May 29th, 2020.

It’s been four years since he passed. His car still sits in my driveway: another daily reminder that I keep meaning to get to someone else, but still find hard to let go of. Grief has its own timeline. While the daily intensity of the emotion has lessened to a point, there are still days when I retreat by myself to the end of the farm to have a good cry. I don’t feel as overwhelmed as I did in the months after his death, but I still grieve. I know grief’s a process and I’m told by others that have lost children that it doesn’t ever go away. It simply changes.

I have a fellow blogger friend, Mitch, who shares his real memoirs from time to time. I enjoy reading them. I’ve often thought I should share my own stories in some way. Jeremy once told me that he and I should write a book. “Dad, no one would believe that crazy shit”, he’d tell me. Life was certainly not dull, at least outwardly. As my own addiction progressed, life became an extremely dull routine of using, finding ways and means to get more, and repeating the process over and over with greater consequences and self-hatred.

Jeremy and I found a way out and shared that path for several years until he ventured down his own path that included relapsing into active addiction. I stayed on the recovery pathway and prayed that Jeremy would join me once again. He did from time to time but couldn’t seem to stay. I miss him terribly.

I thought that maybe I too, should share some stories – crazy as they may be – in hopes that someone relates and maybe, just maybe, it can make a difference in their journey as I’m sure it will in mine. I still don’t know what to call them. It would be inappropriate to call them my “real memoir” – don’t want to step on anyone’s toes – but they are real and definitely a time of remembering. Maybe writing will ease the grief and make some sense out of the craziness.

Look for them from time to time and pray to keep me honest. One of my favorite lines from a recovery book I read frequently is that “Honesty is the antidote to our diseased thinking”.

Maybe the stories will reflect that…

Children, Choices, Consequences, Emotional Health, Family, Generations, Grandchildren, Grief, Recovery, Relationships, Storytelling, Thoughts From the Porch, What Can I Do, Writing

The Way It Was…

gregoryjoel

It’s hard to believe September is already here. Labor Day is the unofficial beginning of Fall so the temperatures here have dropped to the nineties instead of the triple digits and we might even celebrate Labor Day with some rain. I’m hoping but it is Texas after all…

I haven’t written much lately. The heat and oppressive humidity dulled the thinking, and work has taken all the energy I may have. Getting out of sweat-soaked clothes and laying in front of the air conditioning has been norm the last month or so. It’s also the end of our fiscal year at work so evenings are filled with year-end reports and audits. It’s rare to stay awake through the ten pm weather report but that’s okay. The forecast doesn’t change in August. It’s just going to be hot and dry.

My youngest grandkids started school in the middle of last month. Things have changed since I was young. The school year started the day after Labor Day and ended the day before Memorial Day. We didn’t have Monday holidays, so we celebrated them on whatever day of the week they fell on. It seems a bit cruel to send kids back to school while the swimming pools are still open, but I digress…

I have had the privilege of picking my grandkids up from school for a couple of years now. My oldest, Baillie, is working in Alaska, but both of the others are in high school, although they attend different schools. Lucas is close enough to walk to and from Pascal High School where he’s a freshman this year. I get to pick him up on the days he stays late.

Izabella was accepted into the Visual Performing Arts program at I.M. Terrell Academy, which is only two minutes away from the farm. I.M. Terrell was the black high school for many years in Fort Worth when schools were still segregated. Moreover, it’s Ms. Opal Lee’s alma mater. She’s thrilled that Iza is there. It hasn’t hurt Iza that her father works for Terrell’s most famous alumnus.

I’m reminded daily how much I love my grandkids and how much I miss their father. He would (and I’m sure that on another plane he is) be so proud of them. I hope he would be proud of me as well for being there for them. I often wasn’t there for him when he was that age. Addiction has stolen so much from us. It stole both my son’s father and my grandkid’s father. The only difference is that I get the opportunity to make living amends. Jeremy, my son, lost that opportunity on May 29th, 2020.

It’s been four years since he passed. His car still sits in my driveway: another daily reminder that I keep meaning to get to someone else, but still find hard to let go of. Grief has its own timeline. While the daily intensity of the emotion has lessened to a point, there are still days when I retreat by myself to the end of the farm to have a good cry. I don’t feel as overwhelmed as I did in the months after his death, but I still grieve. I know grief’s a process and I’m told by others that have lost children that it doesn’t ever go away. It simply changes.

I have a fellow blogger friend, Mitch, who shares his real memoirs from time to time. I enjoy reading them. I’ve often thought I should share my own stories in some way. Jeremy once told me that he and I should write a book. “Dad, no one would believe that crazy shit”, he’d tell me. Life was certainly not dull, at least outwardly. As my own addiction progressed, life became an extremely dull routine of using, finding ways and means to get more, and repeating the process over and over with greater consequences and self-hatred.

Jeremy and I found a way out and shared that path for several years until he ventured down his own path that included relapsing into active addiction. I stayed on the recovery pathway and prayed that Jeremy would join me once again. He did from time to time but couldn’t seem to stay. I miss him terribly.

I thought that maybe I too, should share some stories – crazy as they may be – in hopes that someone relates and maybe, just maybe, it can make a difference in their journey as I’m sure it will in mine. I still don’t know what to call them. It would be inappropriate to call them my “real memoir” – don’t want to step on anyone’s toes – but they are real and definitely a time of remembering. Maybe writing will ease the grief and make some sense out of the craziness.

Look for them from time to time and pray to keep me honest. One of my favorite lines from a recovery book I read frequently is that “Honesty is the antidote to our diseased thinking”.

Maybe the stories will reflect that…