Dance

I love my wife, and I know she loves me. We love each other despite the respective compulsive behaviors we continually embrace that drive each other a little crazy sometimes.

For example, I acknowledge that I suffer from Dishwasher Palsy; that affliction in which a person’s hands cease to function beyond the act of setting dirty dishes in the sink (as opposed to continuing on that extra foot-and-a-half to place them in the dishwasher).

On the other hand, Michelle suffers from a malady that seems to run rampant in her workplace, called Office Email Forwarditis, in which she seems helpless to resist the urge to forward every chain email she receives to at least a dozen other people and then, in turn, to me as well.

These electronic missives of folly generally fall into a narrow range of categories. Many are somewhat offensively political in nature. Others are simply goofy larks involving some Baby Boomer’s waxed nostalgia for ‘the good old days’. And we've all seen those embarrassingly juvenile collections of silly images, featuring various snide and/or corny captions, usually screaming at you in 36-point Comic Sans or Brush Script (IN ALL CAPS, OF COURSE).

As a graphic designer, these emails often give me the urge to jump off a cliff. As a rational, thinking person, I sometimes have my doubts as to whether or not the originator employed those same capabilities at the time they were dreaming these things up.

Nonetheless, I never delete them out of hand. I always at least give glance to each email, because every once in awhile Michelle will surprise me with a winner; a chain email with a difference; one with a sentiment that rings true, regardless of its level of trite sappiness; a message whose aim to remind us how precious our time on this planet truly is and how we need to make every minute count; one that is right on target.

The email she sent me on Wednesday was like that. I really needed it too, as I had received news the day before that truly placed the whole concept of ‘life’ into perspective for me once again.

Another Episode of ‘Life Interrupted’
This past Tuesday, my morning oatmeal was soured by a Facebook message from my cousin Jeante, announcing that yet another victim had been claimed by our family’s curse of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (EOAD). Another of my maternal cousins has followed her mother and elder sister into heaven years earlier than she ever should have. She was 54; the same age as me. And even though we hadn’t spoken nor even occupied the same room since we were kids, this courageous woman was extremely special to me, via the familial and experiential bonds we shared on numerous levels.

‘Cheryl,’ as I’ve referred to her here in my blog, had battled the disease through active participation in AD research for the better part of the past 20 years. She was a pioneer, an invaluable asset in the field of Alzheimer's research.

Over the last quarter of her life, she had been in a unique and harrowing position of awareness, knowing of the death sentence that had been imposed upon her from birth. At age 35 she became aware that she carried the familial gene that has inflicted the horrible reality of EOAD upon generations of my maternal family tree. However in response, she didn’t retract in fear; she didn’t shut down but rather, became activated, and for the next 15 years, courageously volunteered in the research efforts of the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Alzheimer's Disease Center, as well as in clinical trials of various other institutions in her local area.

She had learned the devastating truth of her condition just prior to the round of tests involving my entire extended family back in 1992, where, under the auspices of IU’s Dr. Martin Farlow, a precursory test for the disease had recently been discovered.

Her decision to become an ongoing participant in the institution’s research involved at least two cross-country trips per year from her home in Oregon to Indianapolis. And while the experimental drugs she helped test likely lengthened her lifespan, in the end, they only postponed the inevitable.

Nonetheless, she considered it a worthy effort; and so it was, as the clinical trials in which Cheryl participated were among those involved in the eventual development of the now-commonly prescribed AD drugs, Aracept and Nemenda. These drugs serve to slow down the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, and in cases of the longer-developing, non-hereditary, so-called ‘sporadic’ variety (most common in elderly populations), can indeed extend a victim’s mental viability a great number of years.

Unfortunately, the aggressive variety of EOAD that has plagued my family isn't nearly so inclined to be denied for very long. Cheryl’s onset was largely delayed into her late 40s, which is several years removed from the average typical beginning of onset in our family’s experience (usually between the ages of 39-41).

And to be sure, by comparison Cheryl would have no doubt been taken from us years earlier if not for the drugs that she helped to be developed. That her own onset symptoms were delayed for so long is no doubt a tribute to the drugs’ success.

At age 54, she lived at least 5-6 years beyond the established pattern of those in our family who had previously succumbed to EOAD.

Although she knew that she carried the gene indicating she would develop Alzheimer’s since 1991, Cheryl wasn’t positively diagnosed until 1999. I didn’t hear anything about her condition until about five years later, when she would have been around the age of 48 — the same age my mother and one of our uncles were when they died. Her elder sister Denise had passed at age 49, however Cheryl remained well-functioning for several more years.

Albeit only over the phone and via email, I finally got to meet Cheryl’s husband Mike a few years ago. He revealed to me that it was in 2005, after she’d gotten lost driving to the office of her longtime physician that they knew her disability was entering the final stages.

Another Long Goodbye
Cheryl was bright and vivacious; I’ve been told she could charm the spots off a leopard. She was a successful businesswoman, working as a manager and buyer for a major department store chain for more than 23 years. But most of all, her husband loved her. Mike, like many other spouses of AD sufferers, has gone through hell and back to be there for his best friend.

Upon realizing that her onset had progressed to the point that her faculties were deteriorating rapidly, Mike, still in his mid-forties, took early retirement from his career as a successful printing company executive to spend as much time as possible with Cheryl while they still had time to enjoy life together.

He purchased a touring motorcycle and the two of them set off for adventure, traveling the United States from Portland to New York City; from Arizona to Alaska; soaking in every moment, feeling every emotion, and bonding as never before. These were the fleeting memories that Cheryl carried with her unto the end; until her thoughts became a morass of brief glimpses and confusion.

Mike began fund-raising efforts in Cheryl’s name through Alzheimer’s Memory Walk events in his local community, consistently being one of the top money-raisers to benefit The Alzheimer’s Association.

If I had a vote to nominate anyone for sainthood, there’s no doubt in my mind who’d get the first nod. I can honestly say I’ve never seen greater love so obviously expressed by a husband for his wife than that of Mike for Cheryl.

Following the couple’s travels over 2006-07, by early 2008, Cheryl’s need for constant care grew to the extent that Mike had to enlist the services of a Memory Care facility in Portland, where he was able to still spend time with her daily, but finally receive a modicum of rest from his exhausting role as primary caregiver.

Cheryl’s earthly journey came to an end this past Monday morning.

Cheryl’s death obviously brings to the forefront of my mind, my younger brother Alex, who still clings to life, himself in the final stages of Alzheimer’s onset. He’ll be 51 in May.

Alex has been on the onset-slowing AD drugs since his diagnosis in late 2004, which has helped to delay his decline. However he was diagnosed comparatively much later in the process than was Cheryl, and is currently in hospice care, likely in the final months of his life.

No, I didn’t forget about The Email
As is my wont, I now circle back to the reason I began writing this post in the first place: the sentiment from the chain email that Michelle forwarded to me this week.

It’s a fairly corny, but poignant and sweet sentiment that I would encourage us all to heed, never forgetting that life is but a vapor and that there are no guarantees. I’m hopeful you’ll get as much out of this silly verse as I did.

And as far as forwarding it goes, do feel free to cut and paste. I think this is one that everybody needs to see.

This was written by an 83-year-old woman to her friend.
*The last line says it all. *

Dear Bertha,

I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting in the yard and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time working.

Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or the first Amaryllis blossom.

I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank.

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now

I'm not sure what others would've done had they known they wouldn't be here for the tomorrow that we all take for granted. I think they would have called family members and a few close friends. They might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think they would have gone out for a Chinese dinner or for whatever their favorite food was.

I'm guessing; I'll never know.

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew my hours were limited. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and parents often enough how much I truly love them. I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, tell myself that it is special.

Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God.

If you received this, it is because someone cares for you. If you're too busy to take the few minutes that it takes right now to forward this, would it be the first time you didn't do the little thing that would make a difference in your relationships? I can tell you it certainly won't be the last.

Take a few minutes to send this to a few people you care about, just to let them know that you're thinking of them.

"People say true friends must always hold hands, but true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there."

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.

finis

That Damned, Unnerving Uncertainty of It All— A Miniseries (Part 4 of 4)

Love’s Labor’s Lost
In my research of the major stories written about Penner’s death, including an unexpected conversation I had a few weeks ago with yet another of he and my brother’s co-workers at the O.C. L.A. Times, it is clear to me, if not to all who have commented on this sad tale, that perhaps the linchpin of Penner/Daniel’s ultimate demise was the one thing he couldn’t reverse; the devastation of the loss of his ten-year partner in marriage, fellow Times sportswriter, Lisa Dillman.

On July 19, 2007, exactly twelve weeks after Penner’s groundbreaking coming-out article, he legally changed his name to Christine Michelle Daniels. That same day, Dillman filed for divorce. Throughout the year in which Mike was Christine, those close to him indicate that he honestly thought the marriage could somehow be reconciled; that Dillman could eventually embrace his decision to live as a woman.

That reconciliation never came.

According to Friess, during the summer of 2008, as Daniels detransitioned back to Penner, he repeatedly told friends that it was his last-ditch effort to somehow reunite with Dillman.

Nevertheless, the divorce decree became final on October 24, 2008. The disenchantment and frustration endured as the impact of his life-decision registered, coupled with the reality that his true love would no longer be a part of his life, appears to have been the ultimate blow to Penner’s will.

A little more than a year later, the holiday shopping season’s official beginning would also be Mike Penner’s ultimate end. On the day after Thanksgiving — now so commonly referred to as, Black Friday — November 26, 2009, in his apartment building’s parking garage, Penner rigged a vacuum hose attached to the tailpipe of his running, parked car through a window, into the passenger compartment, ending his previously very vocal life in silence.

WHY? Can somebody just tell me, please, why??
It’s okay with me if you tune me out at this point, because I’ll give fair warning: I’m gonna wax quite a bit philosophical/metaphysical here.

The human interest aspect of the death of Mike Penner, as well as that which is imminent for my brother Alex, really have only the slightest of true relationships — that being that they were friends and that their lives ended or will end far too early.

I don’t really know why I was so compelled to spend the inordinate amount of time I did writing this post. I don’t know if it was simply because I felt the need to mourn the loss of Penner; someone I felt a great deal of respect for; someone I sort of felt I knew via association with my brother. Perhaps it’s just that it’s such a tremendously sad story, and it makes me realize how much I already miss Alex.

How very fragile, our existence seems at times; and though we actively acknowledge that this is true, we still ask, “why?”

Why am I losing my brother years — even decades too soon?

Why has the world lost a great writer and a great person in Mike Penner?

Why did Penner feel such despair in his life that he couldn’t bear to go on living?

It's almost poetic that prior to his death, Penner’s final regular assignment at The Times was writing the Morning Briefing column’s “Totally Random” feature. It seems the inexplicable machinations of fate that caused whatever physiological affectations responsible for laying askew my brother’s brain through Alzheimer’s and Penner’s self-image through his condition, known as dissociative gender identification, were equally ‘random.’

I mean, think about it. These were two people in the prime of their careers, who literally had the world by the tail. Only good things appeared to lie ahead for each of them.

How does any of this make sense?

Both were betrayed by genetics — my brother, with absolutely no recourse. As for Penner’s circumstance, if you choose to judge him, that’s your business. I choose to judge neither his choices nor his biological reality, but only to regret his tragically mistaken notion that you can go home again, because truly, more often than not, Thomas Wolfe was right.

Who would have ever thought 25 years ago that anything so tragic could become the current reality for each of these talented and cherished individuals?

Why it happened, and to what purpose we can never know.

The only correct response, I believe, is to remember both of them for who they were, to say a prayer in support of their families, and realize for yourself that each day, each moment, each simple pleasure we experience in this life is a gift.

Never take it for granted; never assume it’s deserved.

Be grateful for it. Savor it, lest that damned unnerving uncertainty that stalks us all, be allowed to steal our joy.

Life is not fair. The sun is caused to rise on the evil and the good, and rain upon the righteous and unrighteous alike.

Here’s hoping that each of us can make the most of things while we’re still high and dry.



* * * * * *


finis

That Damned, Unnerving Uncertainty of It All— A Miniseries (Part 2 of 4)

A Long, Long Times Ago...
Following the aforementioned email I rediscovered, I made a pointed search for a particular byline on the Los Angeles Times website. I was interested in learning about the current disposition of a writer who had been the subject of that email exchange I’d had with Alex’s wife in late April, 2007, when he had written a most unusual article about himself.

To my utter chagrin, instead of finding one of his current articles to catch up on, I discovered that Mike Penner, one of The Times’ best and brightest sportswriters by acclamation of all who knew and worked with him, following a tumultuous and very public two and-a-half year period in both his personal and professional life, committed suicide the day after Thanksgiving last year, November 27, 2009. It was Black Friday in more ways than one.

I was crushed, not only in stumbling upon the sad news, but even more so in the unjustifiable guilt I felt for having learned it so far after the fact.

Even more ironic, I thought, was that even coming in so late, the more I read, the more it seemed that I really wasn’t all that far behind others in commenting on what has rightfully become a blockbuster of a human interest story.

The saga of Penner's demise has obviously been big news at The Times, which published an expose on it this past March, but it has also been well-presented in major pieces by GQ Magazine in June of this year and, most recently, in last month’s article by Steve Friess in L.A. Weekly, posted on August 19, 2010.

Right about now you may be wondering why an L.A. Times sportswriter who who took his own life nine months ago has anything to do with a story about my brother Alex — or perhaps, why you should really even care. Well, the latter is up to you, but former, that's my bad.

I wasn’t aware of if, but apparently in writing about my little brother over the years, I’ve neglected to mention the career that he almost had; the one he dabbled in previous to his decision to make the practice of law his ultimate profession.

The Young Sportswriters of Orange County
While still a college student, Alex worked as a sportswriter for the now-defunct L.A. Times’ Orange County Edition from the early-to-mid 1980s. The late Mike Penner was one of his closest colleagues in that effort. They were good friends, well-respected, and appeared to both be on the fast track to local stardom as sportswriters in Southern California.

Penner actually came on a bit later, in 1983 and worked with Alex, often side-by-side, covering the local Orange County high school and junior college sports beats out of the L.A. Times Orange County offices in Costa Mesa.

My brother was a part of the same group of writers from which would emerge such current notables as Rick Reilly, Chris Dufresne, and of course, Penner; who went on to be a tremendous writer, and in most any other environment would have likely risen to the station of lead columnist.

However, due to the glut of organizational talent surrounding him at The Times, Penner had to settle for being just another great sportswriter in a department of great sportswriters. Nothing I have ever read or heard would indicate that he ever chafed at that status. That’s the kind of team player and non-assuming person he was.

Though their early roles on the high school/JUCO beat weren’t always sexy, both Penner and Alex were from time-to-time, given opportunities to write feature articles that appeared in both the Times L.A. Edition as well as its O.C. counterpart. Most involved the California Angels baseball and/or the Los Angeles Rams NFL football teams, both of which played in nearby Anaheim.

For Alex’s part, however, among his bigger splashes were a pair of rather controversial circumstances that didn’t necessarily feature his name in the byline.

The first occurred in 1983, when California Angels slugger Reggie Jackson was struggling through one of his worst seasons ever. Alex was gathering quotes for an article that would actually be written by another Times sportswriter, and in the course of the interview, asked Reggie a question that Mr.October apparently didn’t like.

The exchange quickly developed into a shouting match of apparently such epic proportion that the Hall-of-Famer to-be threatened to kick the young scribe’s ass.

But that was Alex. He was brash, confident, and knew B.S. when he smelled it (...and Reggie was usually full of it).

Then in August 1984, one of my brother's pet peeves, the Olympics came to town, being hosted in Los Angeles. In the midst of a sarcastic rant in the newsroom one day, a Times columnist absconded a quote from Alex that landed in a notes column appearing in the main paper’s sports section.

In it, Alex chirped, “The bad thing about the Olympics is that it legitimizes trash sports every four years.” It was but one sentence in a brief 61-word paragraph buried in a lengthy, four-column article, but the response to Alex’s statement ended up dominating the Times Sports ‘Letters’ section that week, as a host of angry readers took him to task for his contentious stance.

Yep. The boy was opinionated.

It’s important to note, however, that Alex wasn’t merely a shit-stirrer; that part of his persona wasn’t the norm. However he did have the balls as a writer to go with his gut wherever he saw fit; he wasn’t a yes-man; he couldn’t care less about being politically correct. he called it like he saw it.

He was as nice and as charming as anyone you’d ever meet, but cross him in an argument and you’d better remember to bring you’re ‘A’ Game. He was as skilled a debater as anyone I’ve ever witnessed — and as opinionated. His intelligence was almost annoying, but always as irrepressible as his vibrant personality.

When Alex went to work for The Times, huge sports fan that I am, I was as jealously proud as a big brother could possibly be for the direction his career seemed to be taking.

However after a few years, particularly when he and his wife decided it was time to start a family, Alex determined that the late nights, deadlines, and bar closings weren’t the ingredients of a future he wished to pursue.

He announced that he was leaving sportswriting behind in favor of a law career. He was subsequently accepted into a leading California Law school, where he went on to finish second in his class and serve as President of the Law Review his graduating year.
My initial reaction was mild disappointment over what I selfishly considered to be his giving up on a career at which he was obviously a natural to excel. However my disappointment quickly gave way to the awe and respect I felt in seeing him set his sights so high — and then going out and achieving them.

But then again, when he was a little boy, he always proclaimed that someday he’d be the President of the United States. Perhaps this was a logical first step, I remember thinking.

However if public office was an actual goal that he wished to pursue, it never got beyond the dream stage. He was indeed an outstanding attorney for 15 years, but appeared to be happy doing just that, while building a family and a life together with his wife, Saraph, including no further political aspirations (that he spoke of anyway).

Tragically that all changed once he began to succumb to the effects of Alzheimer’s. He officially resigned from the Bar Association in 2005.

Alex’s O.C. L.A. Times colleague, Mike Penner, on the other hand, would go on to great success with the paper. His life seemed to be the envy of anyone in his profession, with respect, great exposure, even the happiness of his apparent marriage-made-in-heaven to fellow Times sportswriter, Lisa Dillman.

But obviously things aren’t always what they seem; and as with my brother, Penner’s own set of demons would make themselves manifest a few years later.

Although I never met him personally, Alex’s numerous accounts involving the exploits of ‘The Penman’ (as they all called him), along with those of others in that stable of young sportswriters that now-Times Deputy Chief Sports Editor, John Cherwa had assembled in Orange County, made me feel as though I’d known him — and them — for years.

However the affinity I felt toward Penner was strongest for a couple of reasons; one being the fact that he and Alex were more or less partners in their duties during the entirety of the time they worked together. Just as importantly, Penner, went on to be The Times’ beat writer for my favorite baseball team, the somewhat schizophrenically-named California/Anaheim (and now, Los Angeles) Angels — which also meant that I read him religiously, even after I left Southern California.

I know how good he was and I know what a loss his departure truly is to the collective, quality fabric that makes up that outstanding newspaper.

But if you’re at all any kind of L.A. Times Sports aficionado, you likely also know that Penner’s intrigue as a person of interest didn’t just end with him being a fabulous writer; it quite literally ended with him being a tortured soul; it ended with him terminating his own life — as a man, when in fact he had lived most of the previous two years as a woman.

Next: Old Mike, New Christine, Same Demons

That Damned, Unnerving Uncertainty of It All— A Miniseries (Part 1 of 4)

NOTE: I’m all about full disclosure, and if the title of this miniseries hasn’t at least given you a clue, I’ll just go ahead and say it: this is not a happy story, and I make no apologies for that.

This is a tribute to two people (…or is it three?); one you know — if you’re a friend of this blog — and another you might know — if you’re an enthusiast of Southern California sports media. What you don’t know, is that the principals are related — in more ways than one.

That being said, it has taken me just over three weeks to ponder, research and write this story, and now that I’m finished, not only am I drained, emotionally, I’m sorta asking myself why I did it, because it really isn’t anything other than bad news. However bad news still needs to be told, and sometimes, even bares positive fruit.

So go pop a Zoloft, put away the sharp instruments, and pardon my melancholy as you learn a little more about a couple of outstanding and complicated people.

Rude Awakening
Ever the electronic packrat, I have genuine difficulty in erasing personal emails. I have nearly every meaningful one I’ve either sent or received since about 1999 — and probably many more than that stored within even earlier system backups. They’re holed up somewhere in some old backup program’s format that I likely no longer have the software for, on ancient DAT tapes that will probably never again be restored.

However I just can’t bear to toss those old tapes, y’know? I keep thinking, “maybe someday…”

Emails are like electronic time capsules; some providing more valuable information than others, but for me, even the most mundane trivia of my past is something I can lose myself in for hours.

The problem is that I don’t spend nearly the time I should, sorting through and determining what deserves to be kept and what should have never made it to my inbox in the first place.

Three weeks ago this past Sunday, however, I was engaged in the semi-regular activity of weeding through some of those old emails; judiciously purging the inevitable junk mail and other useless noise that I’d unintentionally saved over the years.

In the course of that process, I came across an exchange of emails I’d had with my sister in-law, Seraph, back in late April 2007, some five months prior to my most recent — and likely, my final — visit to Dallas to see my brother Alex.

The email made me smile; but it was a smile wrapped in sadness. It returned to mind a bittersweet moment in both the life of my brother as well as that of a friend of his, who was actually the subject of that communication.

Following up on that discovery of a few Sundays ago, I was curious to find out about the current status of Alex’s friend, so I investigated further to hopefully gain some kind of idea of that person’s current standing, as it occurred to me that I hadn’t read or heard anything about them in quite awhile.

There was a good reason that I hadn’t, but it wasn’t because no one else was talking about it.

Stop me if you’ve read this already…
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve written anything about my brother, whom If you’re unaware, is in the final stages of the insidious strain of Early Onset Alzheimer’s disease that has plagued my family for more than two generations (probably a lot more).

Although several maternal-side family members (including my grandfather, aunt, uncle, and mother) succumbed to the disease, we didn’t know a lot about the nature of how it was passed on until 1992, when my family took part in extensive genetic testing at the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Alzheimer Disease Center, in an effort to find a means to test for it.

Heretofore there had never been any reliable way to even detect Alzheimer’s prior to physical onset, which in the case of our family’s “pre-senile” variety, usually becomes manifest during the victim’s late 30s-to-early-40s. Even then, the disease generally takes a couple of years more to present itself to the point that the victim or family members become aware that something is truly wrong.

Fortunately, identification of the causal genetic mutation responsible for our particular brand of AD came to light a year later, based in large part upon the comparative research of our family’s genetic material, including that of my second-eldest brother, David, who was in mid-to-late onset at the time but would become my immediate family's second victim just two years hence.

The results of the research were published in a 1993 Lancet medical journal article. My family reveled in the joy that we had helped accomplish something that would not only serve our progeny, but that of generations to come, both within and outside of our family.

However, that joy was later all but totally mitigated when we discovered that we’d misinterpreted the test results, which had seemed to indicate (unofficially) that we were all in the clear, but in fact had thrown out several family members by necessity of the rules of blind clinical trial method; a fact that we hadn’t noticed, but which simple arithmetic would have been revealed, had we’d been paying attention.

Sadder still was the reality that one of the two family members who fell between the cracks was Alex, who began showing signs that no one acknowledged — the least of whom being himself — back in the early 2000s. By the time we allowed ourselves to consider that Alzheimer’s could be the cause of Alex’s rapidly-decreasing ability to function normally, it was already too late. He was positively diagnosed in November 2004, a year or more beyond the disease’s initial onset.

Although the introduction of recent Alzheimer's drugs Aracept and Namenda have slowed the progress of the disease’s advance and in have fact likely added at least two years to Alex’s lifespan, they have only postponed the inevitable.

[It’s a subject that one glance at my tag cloud (in the left sidebar) will tell you I’ve written a lot about, so I’ll dispense with any more re-hashing and refer you here, here, and here if you’re interested in learning the lion’s share of background info regarding the family curse.]

Though four years my junior, Alex was someone I revered like an elder brother. He was my lifelong best friend. Although I helped raise him as a child, there was never anything but total acceptance as equals between us once we became adults. We married the same year, spent time together both alone and with our families, and never hesitated to constantly affirm to one another how much they were loved.

Alex was my chief confidante; we trusted each other with personal details that will never reach the ears of another living soul. Knowing that I have now lost that outlet has been more than sad for me, so much more than a simple loss, but infinitely less than that which has been experienced and will forever be felt by the wife and three children he’ll leave behind.

Alex is now in hospice care and has been for several months. It is a general rule that hospice enters when the patient has a year or less to live, and so that would indeed indicate that the end is near for my beloved little brother.

He is truly a shell of his former self; unable to speak, feed, clothe, or bathe himself. He still lives at home, as he has from the beginning, a triumph of determination that my sister in-law set forth from the outset; that her husband would not die in a nursing home or other undignified facility as did all in my family who preceded him in this supremely unceremonious terminus of life. Her circumstances have been immeasurably trying and she deserves so much more credit than could ever be given her.

However my intent wasn’t to make this entry a premature obituary for my brother, but to also acknowledge my sadness over the other sobering news that I learned that late August Sunday afternoon.

Next: A Long, Long Times Ago...

The Santa Connection

Blog Jogging
Special thanks to my friend, Will, whose recent blog post inspired this brief story. He was recalling the time in his childhood at which he discovered that Santa Claus wasn’t real. This sparked a memory that I think about every Holiday season — but it’s not about me; it’s about my brother Alex.

As for me, I suppose I first realized that Santa wasn’t real when I was about seven or eight years old; don’t remember how or why, just that I have very little recollection of ever really believing that anyone other than my Dad left our presents under the Christmas tree. At that time in my life, my mom was already in the advanced stages of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and my Dad was always working, so once the idea got into my head that Santa was make-believe, there really wasn’t anyone around to persuade me to the contrary.

However I on my own decided to help my brother Alex, who was four years my junior, to keep the fantasy alive, while leveraging that bit of grown-up knowledge for my own personal enjoyment at the same time.

I convinced him that I was Santa’s personal helper, assigned to our family, and that that St. Nick had asked me to help him out because he was just so very busy. I was assigned to keep an eye out as to whether or not Alex was being good, and to report any behavioral infractions to the North Pole immediately as I witnessed them — via mental telepathy, of course; except it wasn’t your garden-variety mental telepathy — it was vocal mental telepathy; and oh yeah, it was based upon two-way radio communications protocol, too. So in other words, I would ‘talk’ to Santa as if I were a WWII fighter pilot radioing in to base:

“AJ to Santa, AJ to Santa, come in Santa...Sorry to say, but Alex just set the cat’s tail on fire, over...”

Yeah, I was sort of a creep to do that, but oh, the power! If Alex ever dared cross me, I’d play the ol’ ‘AJ to Santa’ card, which would send him instantly screaming to my feet, pleading for mercy.

But don’t think I only used my power for evil. I spent a lot of time reassuring my little brother that he was indeed a good boy, which he was...most of the time. Our Mother’s illness was probably rougher on him than it was on me. He had no substantive memory of her at all, given that her AD onset had begun only a year after Alex was born.

It was a strange, almost surreal time. I may have teased him a little more than I should have, but I tried to protect him as much as my limited understanding of what was going on around us would allow. I loved him more than anything; we were each other’s support group and were extremely close the entire time we lived under the same roof.

In later years we’d kid each other about my little Santa rouse; usually someone would bring it up at a family Holiday gathering. We always laughed about it; Alex was never sore over my abuse. It was always understood as a older-versus-younger brother rite of passage; an example of how we tried to cope in our pre-teen years, growing up without a Mother.

But now, instead of smiles, it brings a pang to my heart every time I think about it; not out of guilt, but just in the sadness of realizing that my little brother will likely never remember that story again. Alex is now himself in the advanced throes of Alzheimer’s. He and my late elder brother David inherited the disease from our Mom. David passed away 12 years ago at the age of 46; Alex’s life however, through the new AD drugs Aracept and Namenda, has been extended beyond that of previous members of my family who’d succumbed to the disease.

He’s 48 years old, and is likely with the final 2-3 years of his life. I don’t know if he even realizes it’s Christmastime.

But I know that I love him; I know that I miss him; and regardless of what anyone else believes, I’d do anything within my power to change his fate.

Oh that I really could speak to Santa; I’d ask for my little brother to be whole, once again; not only for me, but for his family on whose lives his illness has taken the greatest toll of all.

I love you, bro. Merry Christmas.

finis

Two Tales of One City...or Somethin’ Like That (Addendum)

Grand Mol
I was going to try and work this into the story as a whole, but somehow it didn’t seem to fit. So I’m sort of wedging it here middle, between these two tales of one city. I think this is really where it belongs.

I also indicated that it would be an anecdote, but it’s developed into kind of an anecdote wrapped in an opinion, so I really wanted to give it the separate attention it deserves.

So anyway, what I had alluded to in Part I, but neglected to elaborate upon in Part II was that within minutes of checking into the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Dallas on Thursday night, I experienced a Grand Mol Seizure.

Aw hell, don’t worry ‘bout me; it was definitely a good thing. What happened to me wasn’t some discombobulation of my central nervous system; nah…nothing like that.

I just met Molly Holzschlag.

You see, Molly isn’t just any ordinary nerd. She’s something else entirely. Remember when I mentioned I had mistakenly assumed that most web types were like me — laid back, kinda quiet and low-key? Meeting Molly is where I really discovered just how wrong I was.

When Molly Holzschlag meets you, you know you’ve been met. Her personality seizes you and holds you like there’s no tomorrow.

Frankly, prior to the conference I’d never heard of her. For that matter, I’d never heard of any of the speakers at the 2007 Webmaster Jam Session, but Trey had. He knew ‘em all, and was absolutely itching to attend the conference, especially since he had missed the inaugural event in 2006. They were like rock stars to him, and well they should be. Now after taking in all they had to offer — especially in the realm of what they’re all doing for the future of my profession — I hold them on just as lofty a pedestal.

But back to Molly…

Trey and I had just checked into our rooms on the 21st floor. It was nearly 9 P.M. and we were obviously famished, having had only the Southwest Airlines ‘Bag-o-Nuts and Soft Drink Dinner Special’ on the flight down from Nashville. We needed to grab some grub. So after taking a few minutes to drop our bags, we met outside our rooms to head downstairs and find a restaurant.

We made our way into the elevator car and punched the ‘L’ button. As the door began to close we heard the voices of two people and looked up to see them quickening their pace towards the elevator door. Trey reached out to hold it open as they happily filed in.

Our lift-mates were a slender gentleman with a quiet demeanor, along with a gregarious, raven-haired lady wearing a broad smile and a dangerous neckline.

“Are you here for the conference?” she inquired.
“Yes,” we replied simultaneously.
“Well I’m Molly Holzschlag. Nice to meet you!” she said extending her hand to us in sequence.
“I know…I read your web site all the time!” Trey offered.

Molly then proceeded to introduce the gentleman she was with, David Storey, who I would learn later works for Opera, the browser manufacturer, which in retrospect made perfect sense.

As I said earlier, Molly isn’t any ordinary nerd; she’s a crusader. As far as I’m concerned she’s as important to what I do as anyone else in the industry.

As we reached the lobby level and disembarked the elevator, we were somewhat tentatively wandering toward to the hotel’s main corridor when Trey sort of pulled me aside.

In an excited whisper he mouthed, “Do you know who that was? MOLLY! You know…MOLLY.COM? She’s one of the main speakers here! She’s HUGE!

Don’t worry, Mol. He was talking about your reputation.

As we continued en masse down the corridor, I learned that we were bound for the same destination.

I overheard Molly inquiring of her companion, “We’re meeting in the sports bar, right? How far down is it?”

Trey and I looked at each other and I said, “Sports Bar…sound good to you?” He nodded affirmatively. About that time we saw a hotel attendant passing in the opposite direction and Trey asked if the restaurant was close by. She pointed down the corridor in the same direction we were walking.

“All the way to the end,” she called out, so we continued on.

When we reached the restaurant, Molly and her friend spotted some people in the lobby corridor who were obviously connected to the conference. They stopped to commiserate while Trey and I continued in and grabbed a table.

Later that evening we witnessed what was obviously a pre-conference mixer there near the restaurant bar, with Molly holding court for most of the evening. When Molly speaks, people listen, and therein lies her importance.

Who is this woman, you ask, and why is she so important?

Molly Holzschlag is a web browser standards evangelist, and in a nutshell, she’s fighting for my job. She is the preeminent conduit between the W3 Consortium and the software companies who make the browsers with which we surf the World Wide Web.

She’s engaged in the daunting task of bringing all these mostly disparate parties together, to make it easier for all of us — particularly web designers.

The number one problem and most gut-wrenchingly frustrating circumstances any web designer faces is the task of making their pages look and behave the same across all web browsers.

Perhaps you’re aware of it, perhaps your not, but all browsers are not created equal.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), the web code technology I have been so late in getting into in my career, was developed to combat the problem of non-extensibility in web pages. Its purpose is to make sure that web page code is clean, understandable by someone who didn’t create it, and is easily portable from one viewing application to the next.

Without going into the exhaustingly long and tedious explanation for why browser incompatibility still exists, allow me to just say that the problem is still there, but Molly is on it like stink on poop.

You may know that software giant Microsoft is the Great Satan in the minds of many, if for no other reason than this one: Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) handles many CSS commands differently than do the Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers. On the Macintosh side, Safari is somewhat of a different animal as well (pun intended).

As a result, when coding CSS to display the same on all these browsers, it’s necessary to involve work-arounds or ‘hacks’ to get the code to behave properly. Even then, pages don’t always look or work the way they’re supposed to.

This is extremely frustrating for a person like me, who is still in the process of learning CSS to begin with, let alone having to become a hackmaster in the process.

So when Molly is visiting Bill Gates for a summit on browser standards, she’s not just pleading the case of millions, she’s pleading my case. And she’s not just punchin’ a clock here either, people. She’s passionate about what she does. I think she knows it’s her legacy. What an awesome thing that must be, but also what an emotionally taxing burden as well; all the egos; all the red tape; all the corporate bullshit.

At the conference, Molly participated in panel discussions and her own keynote session in which she delivered her State of the Browser Standards address, detailing how the problem could be solved once and for all. Through her diligence, there is hope upon the horizon.

Prior to this 2007 Webmaster Jam Session conference I didn’t know she existed, but now, I’m awfully glad she does.

I’ve met the person.

I’ve seen the passion.

I’ve been seized by Grand Mol.


finis

Also See: The Long Goodbye, Part One

Two Tales of One City...or Somethin’ Like That (Part III)

Work hard, play hard.
It’s become almost a maxim of modern society. It’s as therapeutic as it can be excessive. What am I talkin’ about? Cutting loose; Serious relaxing; Gettin’ your Ya-Ya’s out.

Work hard, play hard, as the saying goes; that release of frustration, tension, and all-around nervous energy we all need to experience to balance what is an ever-increasingly hard-edged, pressure-packed existence in today’s working-world reality.

Personally, I’ve always been a low-key kinda guy. And given the fact that I’ve rarely worked closely with a lot of creative types throughout a largely freelance-or-one-man-shop career, I figured most artists were sorta the same way.

One of my best buddies, and only truly lasting college friend, Jay, with whom I spent five years in the Long Beach State Illustration Department, has a similar temperament as I do, which further fueled my shockingly narrow-minded assumption that artists are generally ‘Type Z’ personalities.

And finally, Trey, my traveling partner and web superior at The Company, is an extremely mellow and soft-spoken guy. So you’ll forgive my misappropriation of opinion here. Who knew?.

Don’t get me wrong; I like to have fun like anyone else. However I much prefer watching people exuberantly lighting it up (no illicit pharmaceutical pun intended) than being the one watched.

And Dood, did I have plenty to watch at the WJS parties!

I guess I wasn’t all that shocked. I mean, bring a few hundred people together — no matter who they are — lock ‘em in a couple a’ big rooms for eight hours and then mention the words, ‘open bar’ when the day is finished, and yeah, you’re gonna get a visceral response.

But hey, I kid because I love; and I really mean that — I I loved this group of nerds — mostly because of how un-nerdy they were! What an incredibly affable, gregarious, courteous, and talented bunch; from the attendees, to the organizers, to the instructors, there was a sense of solidarity and inclusiveness that was really unique for me to behold.

That sense permeated the conference hall throughout both days of keynote sessions, but it was cemented at the parties that the key conference sponsors made available to attendees each evening as a sort of reward for enduring the long days of lecture and instruction.

Mind you, we didn’t really need a reward for two days of top-notch information, but they gave us one anyway.

You gotta be a Geetar Hero
The Friday night gathering was sponsored by Microsoft and Blue Flavor, and held onsite at the Silhouettes Bar, located on the lobby-level in the hotel. It was closed to the public for our little shindig, which was also a nice touch.

The vibe was sedate enough, with most of the folks just milling around, commiserating and enjoying the open bar. This was pretty much how I thought nerds should hang.

The main attraction was definitely the all-comers venue of the video game Guitar Hero 2, which to show you how out of step with the video generation I am, I hadn’t seen or even heard of prior to that weekend.

Back at in the conference area, Microsoft had set up a ‘Digital Lifestyle Experience’ exhibit in a side room, complete with living room furniture, a large plasma screen HDTV an XBOX 360, and Guitar Hero 2 playing on it. People could wander in, try their hand at the game, and chat with the MS reps who were there to talk about their software, which also included the brand new Halo 3, as well as several others for XBOX. It was a bit of a different approach by Microsoft, which was prominently represented amongst the speaker’s group by Chris Bernard, but left a relatively small footprint at the conference from a corporate standpoint. They went for the soft-sell approach, and I think it went over pretty well in an environment dominated by Apple Macintosh users.

So they brought some of the equipment down to the party and had it set up for people to play throughout the evening. They would later that evening give away two XBOX 360s as door prizes. Oh yeah, that got people’s attention.

But what got my attention was the game itself. It was quite a spectacle. GH is a part of the newer generation ‘DDR’ (Dance Dance Revolution)-style games that you play in front of the TV with a (wired or wireless) controller device, which in this case, is shaped like a heavy metal electric guitar.

I won’t even attempt to explain how the game is played, except to say that each player is represented by a proxy figure you can select from a series of rock-god types beforehand. The idea is to play along to the beat of various popular guitar-oriented rock songs, using buttons on the neck of the guitar (while strumming with the other hand in the middle as usual), according to the notes that appear on the game screen. Seems impossible to me, but then again I’m about as musically inclined as a doorstop.

Fortunately not everyone is like me. There were some guys and girls really rockin out on this thing. It was pretty entertaining to watch.

Trey was of course familiar with GH2, being of a generation that grew up with Nintendo and PlayStation. He sat at a table, pretty much transfixed on the game, although he never made the attempt to get up there and throw his own hat into the ring.

I just watched and mingled for awhile, seeking out certain instructors to introduce myself to and thank for the outstanding presentations they’d given. Several minutes later when I went over to re-join Trey, I noticed that he’d already been joined by a couple of very pleasant gals who wanted to get off their feet and chat about the conference.

The ladies had traveled from Iowa for the conference and were just as impressed by the goings-on as we were. We talked about each other’s careers and current jobs, families, and what we hoped to get out of what we were learning.

It was one of many very positive encounters with fellow conference attendees we would make over the course of the two-day event. I really can’t say enough about how cool everyone was. It was like a huge family gathering.

Especially entertaining was what happened after Trey decided to call it a night and retired to his room but I remained, talking with the girls. Several minutes later, one of the conference speakers approached our table and sat down, followed soon thereafter by one of his cohorts.

What started out as casual small-talk about how great a job we thought the two guys were doing quickly became even more casual and goofy, with the two guys obviously chatting up one of the ladies in particular.

I just sat back and watched as the flirtations flew back and forth. I just smiled. But after about five minutes of that, the bar lights came up and an attendant came by our table to announce that they needed to close up. I glanced at my watch and was surprised to see that it was well after 1 A.M..

We all said our goodnights in the hallway and made our way back to our rooms, feeling pretty good about all the day had held.

Little did we know that tomorrow’s event would blow the doors off of Friday night’s little gathering.

Lounge Lizards
Following another excellent day at the conference, our hosts really saved the best for last.

The Closing party, sponsored by Adobe, was held at the Dallas’ infamous Lizard Lounge, not far from the hotel.

Apropos to both its location and the fact that it would be another open-bar event, shuttle bus to-and-from transportation was made available for this grand finale.

I’ve been to a few wild clubs before, but never anything quite like this. The Lizard Lounge is a two-level club with an outdoor upper VIP deck overlooking a large courtyard, which on the occasion of a special event that evening, was carpeted in beach sand, equipped with two large above-ground swimming pools and featured at least a hundred lay, bathing suit-and-flip-flop-wearing folks gettin’ their freak on.

It was the LL’s The Wet Grooves Luau and BBQ event and we were right there in the middle of it all, with semi-exclusive access to the VIP deck. Down on the main stage in the courtyard was a booming sound and video system setup with a crew of DJs spinning music until the wee hours.

Again, the drinks were free and flowing; the incredibly active and enthusiastic bar tenders dispensing them played to appropriately brimming tip jars all night long.

The atmosphere was electric and there wasn’t a plain face on anyone in sight. We mingled, enjoyed the music, and indulged in what was a people-watcher’s dream.

Nobody freaked out.

Nobody blacked out.

Nobody made a fool of themselves (that I could tell, anyway).

Everybody had a great time.

Unfortunately, though Trey had an early flight home the next morning, but we both were ready to call it a night by around 12:30 A.M. So we returned to the hotel, exchanging business cards with some of the other attendees we’d hung out with at the party along the way, and hoped like hell that the hangover fairy would leave something pleasant under our pillows the next morning.

Trey had a 7:00 A.M. flight, so I was really glad I wasn’t him at that point. However I couldn’t exactly sleep in myself. I had to be at the rental car agency at 8:30 to pick up my wheels for a Sunday day trip a few miles north, to spend the day with my brother Alex and his family.

What I had received the previous two days will stand out as a mountaintop experience in my mind, I’m sure, for a good while. But what I experienced in those next eight hours will last me a lifetime.


Next: The Long Goodbye, Part One

Also see: Grand Mol

Two Tales of One City...or Somethin’ Like That (Part II)

Meeting of the minds
Lest I be tempted to nominate Trey for sainthood, I guess I’d better stop slurping and get on with the story. But given the backdrop I just painted about the guy, I think you’ll understand just how great this next part was for me.

For one thing, the conference we attended in Dallas was called the Webmaster Jam Session, not the Underling Jam Session. Trey was the logical choice to attend this thing. He didn’t need to invite me. Quite frankly, some of the stuff being discussed is still completely over my head at this point. Yet Trey knew I could benefit from it nonetheless.

One day during the last week of August, Trey called me over to his cube, pointed to his computer screen and asked, “You ever heard of this?”

He had the Webmaster Jam Session 2007 web site up on his monitor.

“Can’t say that I have,” I replied.

“Well, it’s one of the coolest conferences in the country, and I want us to go,” he exclaimed.

“Sounds good to me!” I beamed.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t pretty pleasantly surprised.

Trey went on to say that the bulk of the speakers for the WJS were folks he had either read or was familiar with, and you really couldn’t argue with the sponsors, an impressive group led by Microsoft, Adobe, Digital Web Magazine, and CoffeeCup Software, the conference’s primary sponsor, with its VP of Operations, J Cornelius serving as event emcee.

The event was held September 21-22 at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Dallas, a very nice venue with spacious convention facilities just across the street, connected by an enclosed crossing bridge. It was pretty cool.

Now I suppose those of you who routinely travel on business and/or pay upwards of $150 per night for a hotel room might be tempted to roll your eyes a bit at my going on about the hotel, but cut me some slack here; I really don’t get out all that often. This is a ‘nice’ hotel, but it’s not exactly The Ritz. However it was definitely the most expensive place I’d ever stayed on a business trip.

The point is, it was a very comfortable experience in all aspects, which made for a very pleasurable experience. The onsite restaurants ranged from medium-priced and decent, to very expensive and exquisite. We ate at all three: the decent sports bar for dinner, the so-so continental restaurant for breakfast and dinner, and the very fine and pricey top-of the tower signature restaurant for dinner our final evening.

Enjoying pricey meals on The Company’s dime was a different experience. All of my previous business trips had solely been training excursions to Atlanta, where most of the time I’d just eat fast food in my room since I was always there by myself. Being on this trip with Trey, and with the downtown location of the hotel (i.e.: no fast food joints in the area open after lunchtime), I at least had a legitimate excuse to spend some actual money on meals.

It was nice to see how most everyone else who travels on business lives for a change.

I mean, there was even a Starbuck’s onsite in the front lobby, so it was all good.

Keynoteworthy
The conference got underway at 10:00 A.M. each morning, in tried-and-true format: an introductory keynote session followed by more specific topical sermonnettes from a variety of industry-respected speakers in your choice of the two large, featured conference halls.

Trey was much more familiar with the speakers going in than I was, as several of them have industry-related blogs that he follows on a daily basis.

Not surprisingly, the philosophies, suggestions for workflow model, and several of the code techniques, tips & tricks I heard during the conference had a familiar ring to them; most of them I had already heard at least being touched upon my Trey.

So I gained even more respect for his expertise; One thing is for certain: the guy I work with — my mentor if you will — knows what the heck he’s talkin’ about with this CSS stuff.

But what I think I enjoyed the most of all were the discussions on the future and theory of web design. It was fascinating stuff. Here are some highlights:

• Jared Spool
  The opening keynote by Jared Spool, whose think tank company works with businesses on the concept of Interface Experience Design (IED). It’s that rare, invisible quality that, when successfully implemented, “integrates the user and the interface.”
  
  He gave a fascinating presentation on the successes and failures of some company’s web sites; how some worked and why they didn’t; why conceptually some products have been wildly successful while others with comparable function were total flops.
  
  His point was that successful IED isn’t all about look or ‘slickness’ as much as it is about feel and usability — the entire user experience. He noted that it’s non-introspective: most of the time it’s not even something that the user can even describe (“I don’t know ‘how’ I can do it, I just can”). He likened the phenomenon to air conditioning; you feel it, you enjoy it, but you really don’t think about it unless it’s not working.
  
  But the part that really rang my bell was when Spool noted that capturing, refining, and applying such a quality is a multifaceted, multidisciplinary process, involving not just one or two web designers, but rather an entire organization. The role of expedient experience design extends throughout the entire creative team. And that is a concept I really had never considered or accepted before.
• Garrett Dimon
  Information architect Garrett Dimon took us through the process of designing a ‘bug tracker’ application (which he supposedly will be releasing to the public soon as an opensource project). He demonstrated all the various decisions involved with creating an interface that makes sense, which are akin to the decisions made in creating web site navigation. It was really interesting to see how his criteria changed throughout the process in determining which elements really mattered and which ones just sort of got in the way.
• Rob Weychert
  Designer Rob Weychert offered his views on the differences between influence and inspiration; the art of availing oneself to new stimuli and truly original thought as opposed to merely following trends that often quickly become cliché.
• Molly Holzschlag
  There were multiple sessions on the subject of web standards, one of which featured perhaps the most noteworthy of all the Jam Session guest speakers, Molly Holzschlag (who I’ll have an amusing anecdote about a little later). She is one of the world’s foremost web standards evangelists and is in great demand as a speaker on the subject. She has worked hand-in-hand with browser manufacturers (including a recent face-to-face meeting with Microsoft’s Bill Gates) and the governing body of the web, the W3 Consortium, to make extensibility standards consistent across the board — a noble task indeed.
• Chris Bernard
  Perhaps my favorite of all keynote sessions was Classic Design and Web design featuring Microsoft’s Chris Bernard. Again it was a lot of philosophical banter about how the web communicates and attempts to do so in a continuation of the established principles and rules of classic design, from the birth of movable type to today, but geeze louise, didn’t it make me feel like I was back in Archie Boston’s Lettering class in Art School! All the talk about old-fashioned typography, The Bauhaus School and Gestalt theory really got the juices flowing for me.

And that was just Day One. But there was more, much more, including a really enlightening session on Web Accessibility by Derek Featherstone.

Feed Me
Day Two included sessions on web font usage, search engine optimization, more on CSS, further discussions on maximizing user experience in web design, and several other talks I only neglected to attend because I just couldn’t figure out how to be in two places at once.

Trey and I split up for a few sessions, with him opting for the more management-geared keynotes while I attended as many talks on CSS as I could fit into my schedule.

It was all a lot to take in, but even as the long days grew longer, the vibe, the ‘wow’ factor, the look on everyone’s faces — when they should have been totally burned out — instead were beaming with a look that said, “I want MORE!”

Well…there were always the parties…


Next: Work hard, play hard

Two Tales of One City...or Somethin’ Like That (Part I)

Trey Magnifique
Old adages are great, aren’t they? They’re true just often enough to make you think, “Wow, I shoulda remembered that!” in the wake of circumstances that pass through our daily lives.

It’s easy to distill the circumstances of our daily lives into these neat little packages of dogma anytime the unexpected occurs. We cite the truisms, No one knows what tomorrow will bring, or Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.

My favorite is actually a rather new entry to the lexicon: Never assume, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME.

We just never know, do we? It’s amazing how often something or someone we were sure we had pegged to be one way, turns out to be another. We all do it, and usually without a lot of consequence. We simply shrug and say, “Who knew?”

However sometimes, when the stakes are a bit higher, it’s easy for a lot of us to be a bit more dramatic. Sometimes it’s easier to assume the worst than to hope for the best, then when to our surprise, the worst doesn’t come to pass, when we’ve successfully dodged a bullet, we gain perspective as to what our measure of blessing in this life is all about.

Over the past year I’ve learned — quite happily, I might add — that I was wrong about a lot of things.

I’ve come to appreciate the considerable good fortune that has been afforded me in the most unlikely of circumstances. At a time when I seriously feared for my future, he who I feared would be my executioner has turned out to be my savior.

What you don't know can hurt you
When I was told in the spring of 2006 that I was being passed over for the newly created Webmaster position at work, it stung, but not too much. I knew I was under-qualified to take on supervision of the new web site that was at the time still under construction, being created in all Java and CSS, two more recent web technologies that I knew ‘about,’ but certainly didn’t ‘know.’

I was stuck in a time warp. For eight years I had been tied to old, failing and/or obsolete web software that The Company’s previous two IT providers either owned or were heavily invested in, not-so-coincidentally foisting them upon us, having convinced upper management that they were the tools best suited for our needs.

Yeah, and carrier pigeons are the best way to send a letter, too.

So while everyone else in my profession was busy engaging the new technologies of the Web, learning CSS, JavaScript, and the newly mandated extensibility standards for HTML, I was still in the Pleistocene epoch. While my contemporaries were breaking away from the chaotic world of ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) web editors, eight years later I was still hip-deep in programs like, NetObjects Fusion and Lotus Domino.

So when the time came that The Company finally decided to graduate from dino-tech and embrace the current web standards, I wasn’t ready. I was like a deer in the headlights. I saw the truck coming, but felt powerless to move.

Now if you’re thinking it sounds as though I might need a little cheese to go along with my whine, you’re probably right. Sure, I was dealt a bad hand, but I didn’t have just to wring my hands as I did (when I wasn’t sitting on them, that is).

The Company’s ill-informed technology decisions didn’t absolve me of the sins of paralysis and apathy I committed against my own career. Instead of waiting for someone to hold my hand, I could have sought training, and of course I didn’t.

Even years ago, I could have made a bigger stink about our backward web technology. Perhaps I could have at least gotten the ball rolling, and convinced a few of the right people up to wake up and smell the coffee of the standards-driven movement that was sweeping the World Wide Web. But logically that would have required that I understood it myself first, and of course, I didn’t.

I could have attempted to learn JavaScript on my own instead of expecting for someone in IT to code the half-dozen JS projects that I had proposed, for me. I would have been willing to do most of the work; I just needed some guidance; someone to bounce questions off of; a little on-the-job mentoring. But no, “Too busy,” they said. “If you can’t do it, outsource it,” they said, and of course we never did.

I felt as though I was on an island; stranded; a castaway to my own fear of failure.

Instead of being a code warrior, I was a code worrier. I feared that if I stepped from behind the security of my one-pixel transparent GIFs and WYSIWYG web programs, surely I would be exposed for the programming-challenged faux-nerd that I was.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m a pretty good designer, if I can say that without sounding too conceited. I’ve never had trouble making web sites that look good. It’s just that nowadays nice-looking isn’t good enough; non-interactive web design has become about as out of step as the 56k modem: just barely passable, and certainly not the way you want to go.

I suppose my problem was that I came into the Web arena from the print design world, with no knowledge whatsoever of code writing. I was a graphic designer who dove into web design using visual layout tools as opposed to learning HTML from a traditional coding perspective, and I certainly had no experience with programming languages like Perl/CGI, Java, or JavaScript.

I was exactly the type of person that the new movement was trying to at least enlighten, if not eliminate altogether. I was a web designer who understood little to nothing about the extended syntax of HTML, but instead depended upon WYSIWYG web programs to lay out pages visually, with their bloated, non-standard, bastardized code beneath the surface.

The biggest outcry against this visual, auto-generated method of creating web pages came from an area most people didn’t give a lot of thought to years ago, but whose ever-growing voice is now being heard and catered to: sightless and handicapped web users.

Web page readers are browsing devices that allow handicapped folks the ability to surf the web, by actually ‘reading’ a web page’s code audibly to the user, who navigates around the page via voice commands responding to the options given.

This method of actuating the functionality of a web page requires clarity in the way the page code is written, with the naming of all elements being essential, otherwise the maneuvering about for options is useless or at best extremely difficult for the user.

In this case, navigating through murky, ill-fashioned code would be like driving a car down the road trying to figure out where you are but all the road signs are either blank or written in gibberish.

This and the fact that clear, precise naming and code conventions saves processing time and thereby overall bandwidth, makes the push for code clarity as sensible as it is necessary.

So, bottom line was, I knew that I was in for a pretty radical change, and while I accepted it well enough, I still didn’t get the urgency of it all. I can’t say I went kicking and screaming into the New World, but I sure didn’t go willingly. It took a little prodding — in more ways than one.

You can’t judge a book by its cover — or its age
As I did more than hint about last year, the get-to-know-you period between my new boss, Katie, and me hit a few rough spots. As we transitioned from the old to the new web presence, I blithely continued to stroll along, plugging away at my job, almost as though nothing had changed. I had been told that it would be up to me to arrange the training I would need to learn CSS and JavaScript, et al. But instead of stepping up, I retreated to busywork related to the brand update that commanded most of our attention during 2006. It was work that needed to be done, but I focused on it to the exclusion of nearly all else, using it as my rationalization for not taking the initiative to arrange the training I would need when the new web site came online.

The Webmaster position still had yet to be filled over that summer, when the outsource company who was hired to create a new, whiz-bang corporate web site had nearly completed their task. With the exception of being asked my opinion on a few matters along with the Marketing team as a whole, I wasn’t included in the meetings during which the particulars about the new web site were hammered out.

I suppose I may have overreacted, but I felt more than a little left out. I had to wonder if I wasn’t being slowly nudged out the door. Regardless of what my concerns were, my resolve should have remained strong, but to be honest, it wasn’t. I sulked. I felt the walls closing in. I just put my head down and did what I knew I absolutely had to do, and nothing more.

At that point I remember thinking, “Why get training? What’s the point? I’m probably gonna lose my job anyway.”

Fortunately those self-destructive thoughts were only occasional, but I’d be lying to say they didn’t affect my behavior. Nonetheless I did try to do a few things to indicate that I was worth keeping around.

I was able to make a few JavaScript improvements to the existing web site that temporarily placated Katie’s abject disdain for it, but I knew was treading water at best, and still gradually sinking overall.

When Trey, the new Webmaster was finally hired in August, I really didn’t know what to think. I already had this persecution complex going with Katie. I could only imagine that a late twentysomething Web whiz-kid would regard this old dog with at equal disdain.

The last thing I expected was a totally cool, extremely smart and genuine person who actually cared about my success, when he most likely had the power to replace me if he felt I couldn’t cut it.

I really saw what Trey was about when the ca-ca hit the proverbial fan a little more than a year ago. After the new web site launched in October, he had been bringing me along slowly, giving me simple projects to do; things that didn’t require a lot of ramp-up with regard to maintaining our shiny new web presence.

However we fell behind on a new initiative that was directly related to our customers, not just the corporate look of The Company’s web site. When pressed for the reason we didn’t deliver as scheduled on the developmental deadline we had for the project, Trey reluctantly admitted it was because he had to go in and clean up after me, which was the truth.

I had thought I’d done pretty well on this, my very first CSS project, but there was obviously still a lot I didn’t know. All things considered, Trey was impressed with the work I did, but Katie wasn’t so patient.

She basically told Trey that I was skating on extremely thin ice, and that she was upset that I hadn’t prepared myself my better to be ready for the work that I knew was coming. And she was absolutely right about that.

But to his credit, Trey defended me. He didn’t throw me under the bus when he had ample opportunity to do so. However that situation was the wakeup call I needed.

Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks
I immediately went out and got a couple of CSS books, which coincidentally, both Trey and other coder friends I knew suggested. I began reading and practicing. All through Thanksgiving vacation I had my nose set fast into tutorials and those books. My head was spinning. I felt totally overwhelmed at first, but quickly began familiarizing myself with the tenants of CSS.

All the while, Trey was extremely encouraging, giving no indication that that any question I had was too trivial or burdensome. Slowly but surely, I started to get it.

Now a year later I feel pretty comfortable and the path to Trey’s cubical is a little less worn than it was several months ago. Next area of concentration is JavaScript, which still poses a looming threat to my overall viability as a web designer in the New World. However I’ve been able to find a lot of good support materials and tutorials on the Web, so, onward and upward I suppose.

The point is, this guy who I had no confidence would find me anything more than a stumbling block has been more than fair. He doesn’t coddle me, but by the same token, I haven’t exactly needed it. I just needed someone to provide a little guidance; someone to bounce things off of, so that I didn’t feel so isolated in this sea of new challenges.

Lucky for me, Trey went far beyond my unnecessary paranoia. I really couldn’t have asked for someone more grounded, stable and fair.

Lucky me, indeed.


Next: Meeting of the minds

Two Tales of One City...or Somethin’ Like That (Prologue)

A ‘Jammin’ Weekend
With all apologies to Dickens, I’ve been thinking about how to approach the story of my recent weekend trip to the ‘Big D,’ and I wasn’t totally convinced that I wanted to do it in one fell swoop. Nonetheless I knew that I needed to go ahead and begin writing before the details start to go cold, or some other distraction pushes them out of my head while it vies for my attention.

The problem is that my emphasis in this series will necessarily be divided from amongst two completely unrelated subjects, however the second circumstance would have not happened without the first, so chronologically and logistically, they’re kinda joined at the hip. But as parallel subjects go, they couldn’t be any more diametrically opposed.

Therefore I think I’m going to split things up and compartmentalize my experience into two separate components, while keeping them together in one series. Certainly they are very different, both in scope and in emotion, but I do somehow feel that they need to be grouped together.

We’ll begin with the Webmaster Jam Session 2007, a two-day conference that was the reason I was in Dallas to begin with. In it’s second year of existence, it has been put together primarily by a company out of Galveston, Texas called Coffee Cup Software.

However in my opinion the flavor of the event was much more Seattle and Mountain View than Texas.

It was truly an eye opener for me in many ways. Both philosophically and practically, many of my longstanding sensibilities regarding my profession were at least challenged if not changed altogether.

So to attempt to explain to myself what exactly it was that rocked my world so dramatically, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and analyzing my entire career these past few days in the wake of the conference.

I’ll be touching upon some fairly philosophical points about web design and the computer age in general at the outset of this series, so if tech stuff bores you, you may want to just wait for Parts 3 and Four. However I’d invite you to come along with me all the way on this initial tale, because what I observed and learned about others as well as myself, I consider to be pretty interesting.

From ‘Jammin’ to ‘Jammed Up’
The second portion of the series will of course deal with something even closer to my heart than my career: my beloved little brother, Alex. It was a no-brainer that immediately after I discovered I was coming to Dallas for the conference that I began making plans to take a side trip to visit my true best friend.

As you probably know, Alex is the second of my four siblings to fall victim to the family curse: Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease. He’s four years my junior and is at least halfway into the disease’s gestation which, by previous history of afflicted family members, runs about seven years from onset to death.

However Alex has benefited from the new medical efforts to treat this horrific disease, having been treated with Alzheimer’s drugs Aracept and Nemenda since late 2004, when he was positively diagnosed at Indiana University Medical Center, possibly two years (or more) into onset.

He is now in far better shape than our elder brother, David, who at a similar stage was much more degraded, both physically and mentally. But sadly, Alex’s inevitable decline continues, more rapidly now than before.

I wrote about that trip to Indianapolis, to IU Medical Center, on which I accompanied my brother four years ago this coming November. I haven’t written anything significant about his condition since — but not for lack of effort. I just couldn’t conjure up the emotional fortitude to deal with the pain.

I still have the many pages of notes and outlines I jotted down in longhand at sporadic off-moments during subsequent visits in 2005 and 2006, along with my Dad. But aside from transcribing one or two brief segments (and never posting them), I’ve yet to come close to writing anything in-depth about my observations of my brother’s ever-declining condition.

Hopefully I can do that now.

I really want to follow up on It’s Still Ticking, and as I said I have a lot of material from which to work, that I had previously just set aside because it was so hard to think about.

It’s really not any easier to think about it now, but I do know that it’s time for me to begin laying it all out. I feel as though I must do it now or this story may never get written.

Two tales.

One City.

Two very different emotions.


Next: Trey Magnifique

OMG

Please pardon the schoolgirl exuberance, but...
I will definitely have more to say about my weekend in Dallas — both from the perspective of the Webmaster Jam Session 2007 conference I attended on Friday and Saturday, as well as the side trip I took on Sunday to spend some time with my brother Alex.

But just by way of exclamation, please allow me to say (phonetically, mind you), aayoh moy gawd, what a GREAT WEEKEND!

The conference was fun, incredibly informative, and exuded a vibe of camaraderie I’ve felt upon very few occasions in my lifetime, and even fewer in circumstances associated with my profession. It was an extremely energizing and fulfilling time.

Likewise, while quite a bit more reserved, the emotion-packed, but surprisingly loose five hours I spent with Alex and his family was truly special. Sadly, my brother continues along the path of mental detachment at an increasingly rapid pace — there’s no mistaking that. Nevertheless I was delighted to see how much of the real him is still there to enjoy.

It was hard to leave after only a few hours, but it was a really good few hours nonetheless.

As physically tired as I am today, emotionally I’m fresh as a daisy.

In one circumstance I excitedly anticipate the future; in the other, I absolutely dread it. Each situation carries with it a peculiar kind of energy — one that simultaneously soothes and agitates my soul — yet both experiences are invigorating in their own kind of way.

I’m going to need some more time to process the emotions I experienced this weekend — I’m just not sure how much. I took a lot of notes on both scenarios; I'll need some time to transcribe and expound upon those thoughts, but I will be talking about this more in the near future.

Until then, have a great week, all.


finis

Conference Call

Weekend Trek to Tejas
Just a quick post to say that I'll be the one traveling this weekend. I'm haeading off this afternoon to fly down to Dallas for a web training conference on Friday and Saturday courtesy of The Company.

I'll be traveling with my web co-worker, Trey, and hopefully get a head-full of good knowledge from the conference training sessions and keynote speakers who will be featured at the event.

After the conference, instead of flying back home on Sunday morning, I'll remain in Dallas and spend the day with my brother Alex and his family. It's been just over a year since I've seen my little bro, and from recent conversations with his wife, Seraph, he's going downhill rather quickly. So I'm preparing myself for the worst, but hoping for something better.

We'll be spending about six hours together, and I'm hopeful they'll be as high-quality as possible. We'll see. I'll then take an evening flight back home, arriving back in Nashville around 9:30 PM, so needless to say, my weekend will be full.

It should all make for a very interesting three days. Stay tuned.

A Letter from Heaven

Another Fiftieth
On July 28th, I celebrated my fiftieth birthday — obviously a big milestone for me. However July 29th marked another fifty-year anniversary I would like to commemorate as well.
A month ago in my hometown of Anderson, Indiana, at my family’s Annual Cousins Reunion (which is held each summer, but which I had never gotten off my butt to attend until just this year), I was approached by my cousin Maggie, whom like about 90% of the other folks at this gathering I hadn’t seen more than once or twice in the past 35 years. She didn’t greet me with a hug or even a “hello.” She simply walked up to me, leaned in and deadpanned, “Did he give it to you yet?”

“Oh…HI!…and, um…no…no he hasn’t, but he says he will.” I replied, believing I understood what she meant.

“Tell him I will HURT HIM if he doesn’t give it to you AS SOON as you get back to his house this evening.”

Maggie is a former marine. She could make good on that threat.

So what was “it?” It was a letter; a letter from Heaven; a precious piece of personal history that Maggie discovered amongst the belongings of her Mother (my Aunt Lee) penned by my mother, Annie, fifty years ago yesterday.

After running across it this past Spring, Maggie sent the letter to Jack, who was supposed to give it to me in late March, when I was in town for Uncle Jake’s funeral. But he set it aside and forgot. After learning about it in a phone conversation later, I was determined to remember and retrieve it when I returned for the reunion in June. Nonetheless, no one brought it up and I had forgotten all about it until Maggie’s query jogged my memory.

The letter was originally a communiqué from Annie to her Mother, my Grandmother Vera, the morning after the day I was born. Annie was in the midst of a four-day hospital stay — unusually long by today’s standards, but right in line with the custom of the day — recovering from her fourth out of an eventual five childbirths, all of which were boys.

My Dad would tell me years later just how much my Mom hoped I would be a girl — her “Julie Ann” — but as you’ll see shortly, while her understandable desire was to have at least one daughter, her love played no favorites.

Having never had the opportunity to ask her about it, I have often wondered if she really ever was disappointed that in me, the Y chromosomes had won again. But now, wonderfully, via this gift of yellowed, dime store stationery, I have my definitive answer.

Whether the letter was ever mailed, I do not know, but it ended it up among Aunt Lee’s keepsakes where Maggie found it following her mother’s death of a few years ago.

Let me now publicly thank both Lee and Maggie for blessing me with such an incredible link to my past; a gift too precious for words.

To briefly set up the context of the letter, Annie had just given birth to me, her fourth son on Saturday, the day before. However the circumstances were rather unique in that Lee, her directly younger sister and lifelong sibling companion was also pregnant and could deliver at any time. The hospital agreed to reserve the bed beside Annie’s for Lee, who would give birth to my cousin Samantha just the next day, on Monday July 30th.

Annie was understandably excited to be able to share such a rare and special experience with her sister, and while waiting for Lee to arrive, wrote to my Grandmother to talk about it.

In addition to being a very personal, wonderful, priceless glimpse into the mind and personality of the woman who gave me birth, this letter is just a tremendous slice of life; an authentic sampling of late-1950s American culture. My Mother’s description of her hospital room and meal; her doting accounts and descriptions of my brothers, as well as her simple, almost naïve-sounding commentary about childbirth, speak to an innocent, less-worldly existence back in a day when life just seemed to make sense.

Of particular interest to me is the wonderful grammar and sentence structure she exhibits in her writing; it’s nearly perfect — also a sign so typical of that time, but which is nearly non-existent in today’s culture of colloquial communication.

My Mother was a woman of faith — that much is obvious. She speaks of her relationship with God with such calm sureness; it is a testament to her spiritual strength. Included in the letter are numerous references to friends from church, a community from which, along with her family, she drew strength and purpose.

While nothing in the letter is really all that profound on its own, the fact that it affords me an opportunity to glean even a little bit more of the essence of this woman — whom I have so little first-hand knowledge of — is highly significant to me.

The Players
And since ya can’t tell the players without a scorecard, here’s a brief reminder who they are:

Mother: My Grandmother Vera, age 65
Annie: My Mother, age 37
Darren: My Dad (heretofore unnamed in any of my stories; It isn’t his actual name of course, but it means, “Great” so it fits), age 35
Lee: Annie’s younger sister, age 35
Jackie: My eldest brother, a.k.a. Jack, age 9½
Davie: My brother David, age 7½
Kenny: My brother TK, age 2½
AJ: Your neighborhood bouncing baby boy, age 1 day

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sunday Morning

Dearest Mother:

I’m lying here in bed wearing your yellow gown and your blue bed jacket while a nice cool breeze is blowing in on me. The bed next to me is still empty — waiting for Lee to come up here. I don’t know if they will hold it much longer — actually, thanks to Dr. Donaldson, they’re holding it as a personal favor to us.

Honestly, I’ll just die if they bring someone in who smokes, swears or has a radio. It’s so peaceful and quiet up here. This room is the nicest one I’ve ever had; it’s nice because it’s a corner room with one window on the west — alongside my bed and another window at the foot of my bed facing south. Then there is another window facing south at the foot of Lee’s bed.

So much about the room. Well, Mother my girlhood dream has finally come true — I have the four children I dreamed about for so many years. You can’t imagine how proud I am of them.

I know lots of people are disappointed that I didn’t have a girl, but Darren, the boys and I don’t care so why should anyone else! We are the ones who should be concerned. Before Jackie went to camp, he said, “I don’t care whether it’s a boy or a girl — it doesn’t make any difference to me.” When Davey left for Tippecanoe to go after Jackie yesterday, the last thing he said to me was, “Mommie, just be sure it’s a little boy.” And Kenny all along has said, “I don’t like ‘gulls.’” It isn’t that we don’t like girls or that we didn’t want one — it’s just that we never believed we could get one.

The real test for me came when I came to yesterday and Darren told me we had a little boy. If I had hoped for a girl — as Rev. Losh claimed — there would have been a tinge of disappointment in my heart when he told me the news. But there wasn’t a tinge of disappointment at all. A little girl would have been very welcomed, but for some reason it wasn’t in God’s plan. And after all, He gives us what He feels we need.

So actually the prayer I prayed while I was in the delivery room was answered. I simply asked Him to have His way and we wouldn’t complain.

I was disappointed though in the fact that AJ only weighs 5 pounds & 4 ounces, although I don’t think I’ll have the trouble with him that I had with Jackie. At least he drinks his glucose and has nursed just a tiny little bit. If I can keep him awake long enough to eat, maybe I won’t have the trouble getting him started — like I did with Jackie.

I just had a wonderful dinner. I had the breast, wing and neck of a chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, fruit salad on lettuce — chocolate ice cream and iced tea. Believe me I ate every bit of it and I’m stuffed!

Now I’ll get on with my news. Darren would probably get mad at me if he heard me say this, but I believe in being honest. AJ isn’t a pretty baby like Kennie and Jackie were. As a matter of fact, Davey wasn’t a pretty baby either. But just look how cute Davey turned out to be with his dimples and dark eyelashes. So there is hope for AJ too. When he fills out he’ll be cuter. But now he’s skinny and scrawny — but awfully, awfully sweet. He’s just a teeny, weeny thing. The first two times they brought him to me he wasn’t asleep nor did he cry. He just looked at me with such a sweet helpless look and I wondered then how anyone could be disappointed in the sex of a child.

I think Lulabelle Palmer paid us a great complement when she said, “Annie, boys need lots of love, care and understanding, and I think God knows which parents to give them to.”

We do love our boys and they’ve given us an awful lot of happiness. If I can just get AJ to nurse so that he’ll gain weight quickly I’ll feel a lot better.

Mother, I didn’t tell you about my water breaking because I didn’t want you to worry. I figured you were sick enough as it was without something new to worry about. Actually Davey’s birth was the easiest, but this one too was a cinch. Dr. Donaldson isn’t in favor of having “forced labor” and the only reason he did me was because I had lost all my water. I didn’t cry with any of my labor pains at all. In fact every time I felt one coming I would picture Jackie’s sweet face as we had devotions together before he left for camp — then I’d picture Davey’s dimpled smile and pretty eyelashes as he said goodbye to me and told me to bring home a little boy — and finally I could see little Kenny as he said, “Mommie, do you know what? I love you!”

And by the time I pictured all three of my boys in my mind, my pains were already gone! I learned more about having babies this time than I ever had before. I asked the nurse anything I didn’t understand and she told me.

By the way, AJ has a lot of real black hair and he’s dark. He doesn’t resemble anyone I know. Lee and Darren think he’s cute.

Well I guess I’d better bring this letter to a close. Maybe I’ll remember to ask Darren for a dime tonight and I’ll try to call you up.

Bye for now and here’s five kisses for you. X X X X X. I miss seeing you a lot, but I’ll be past Tuesday afternoon to show you your 6th straight grandson.

Lots of Love,

Annie

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Golden
I’ve never heard an untoward word ever uttered in association with my Mother; though there’s no doubt in my mind that she must have had some type of shortcoming, I’ve just never met anyone so inclined to list a single one. Naturally to that end I have to admit feeling more than a little bit cheated in not having any memory of a true connection with her.

Sadly, I don’t remember ever having a conversation with her on any level; only flash images of her doing housework, talking with friends on the phone, sunbathing on the back patio — wearing shiny copper pennies over her eyes to protect them from the sun — things of which I’ve written before; these are the memories I cling to, yet which often ring hollow; mere silent movies with no meaningful interaction.

Unfortunately I can’t hear my mother’s true voice within my memories. More often than not, the only voice I hear is that of the confused, middle-aged woman I knew when I was eight years old; her mind clouded by physical forces she had no way of understanding. I hear only frustration and the anger, not the love and vitality I’ve come to know as her hallmark by the accounts of those who knew her well; those fortunate souls who can reach back and pluck from their memory banks any number of rich interactions with Annie in her prime.

And though I’m indeed envious, I’m really not bitter, because I know I’ll meet her again someday, and I’ll know everything there is to know about her; and she about me.

But for now I’ll be content to augment my own memories with those of others. I’ll take advantage of opportunities such as the advent of this wonderful letter, projecting Annie into new scenarios, creating new memories for myself of her; learning what I can; what she thought; how she lived.

What a powerful thing to fathom, knowing what she was thinking so long ago. What a humbling experience to actually feel through her written words, the love that only a mother can have for her children.

Sunday Morning

Dearest Mother:

I’m sitting here at my computer, wishing so much that you could see the man your scrawny, little black-haired baby boy has become; wondering if you’d be proud; wondering how different my life would be if I hadn’t lost you so very many years ago. And although I cannot know the answer to these questions now, I look forward to the time when I will know all things fully, just as I have also been fully known.

Thank you for this letter; for giving me another precious glimpse into your life and spirit; a spirit I’ve tried so desperately to emulate over the years.

I’m not sure whether or not they have Internet access in Heaven, but I trust this will get to you somehow. Thank you for giving me life; for loving me. Thank you for always being with me.

Love, eternally,

AJ

finis