Love Me Today: The Significance of Small Moments & Great-Grandmother-in-Laws

stargazingIf you’re ever going to love me love me now, while I can know
All the sweet and tender feelings which from real affection flow.
Love me now, while I am living; do not wait till I am gone
And then chisel it in marble — warm love words on ice-cold stone.

I’m not often choked up.

Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.

As life progresses, I realize my rough exterior is pierced more often than I’d like to admit. Not by sadness, but by life’s significance. The significance of all the small details, small moments.

2017 has claimed my lovely bride’s two Grandmothers. As a result, the fam has experienced two memorial services for Great Grandmothers in the past month.

Neither a surprise. Both an opportunity to reflect.

Both remembered for strength and grace.

The above poem was read at yesterday’s memorial service. A great sum of my feelings on loss and funerals.

Let the ones you love, know you love them. Now.

One of life’s many lessons: be present, aware, with a focus on Now.

But our everyday life pulls us to the opposite poll – rushed, stressed, focused on the past AND the future.

The Now requires a focused effort…Easier said than done.

I practiced my best focused effort during yesterday’s service. I related to the poem, spent time with family and reflected on the kind words.

I was surprised by a familiar twinge of emotion starting in the chest and pushing towards the eye – a tear threatening to escape.

Not because of sadness – I hope I showed love when I had the chance. It was the significance that bit so hard.

As we age, life seems more significant. In reality, we’re just more aware of the significance that has been there all along.

Great-Grandmother-in-Laws have impacted me more than I could ever imagine.

They opened their hearts, their homes, and their families. They accepted me unconditionally and trusted me with their lineage.

These moments may seem small, but the significance cannot be overstated. This kindness, this love will carry on for generations. They are in our veins and they are in our actions. I see their love in my family every day.

I know I say the words, but I’m not sure I’ve understood the significance.

Saying I love you is easy (important, but easy).

Recognizing the significance of this moment is hard.

A memorial is a great reminder. But the opportunity is Now.

A Saturday night stargazing and a Sunday morning lounging with Curious George may seem simple, normal. But the significance is hidden by the normal.

Last night’s stars were extra bright, and the hugs this morning are extra sweet.

With the right focus, perhaps I can capture more of the significance life has to offer – the people, relationships, and love that can be lost in the everyday hustle.

Pay attention to the small details and the significance of each moment.

When they are gone, they are gone. Love me today.

Thank you Mimi and Granny. We love you.

 

Life Lessons from the End: What can Aging & Death Teach Us?

Considering the recent post about my Grandfather, this seems like a good time to share some life lessons from the end of a life well lived.

We push through our daily lives struggling, clawing, fighting for…????

We are continually distracted by all of the things we think we need to do. Places to be. People to impress.

In the end, what really matters?

  1. Marcus Aurelius on Mortality & the Key to Living Fully – Brain Pickings: Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is an all-time classic. Sits on the table next to my bed. A few thoughts on the end of a life well lived…
    1. Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.
      Cold or warm.
      Tired or well-rested.
      Despised or honored.
      Dying … or busy with other assignments.Because dying, too, is one of our assignments in life. There as well: “to do what needs doing.”
  2. Top 5 Regrets of the Dying – Guardian:
    1. I wish I’d had the courage to live the life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
    2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
    3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
    4. I wish I had let myself be happier.
  3. What Can a Man Lear from His Grandparents –  Art of Manliness: You have their genetics. They are you. You are they. Learn from their…
    1. Work.
    2. Idiosyncrasies.
    3. Gifts to you.
    4. Activities with you.
    5. Strengths.
    6. Aging.
    7. Legacies.
  4. 7 Questions You Will Ask at the End of Your Life – Marc & Angel:
    1. Am I proud of how I lived?
    2. What did I discover?
    3. How well did I play the hand I was dealt?
    4. Did I take enough responsibility?
    5. What struggles did I conquer?
    6. How sincerely did I live through love?
    7. How much of my story did I actually write?
  5. 25 Life Lessons from a 100-Year-Old: Here are my top 5…
    1. Always maintain a good sense of humor.
    2. Your family is the most precious thing you will ever have in life.
    3. Education is important, but not necessary. Life can be an education in itself.
    4. Explore your world and stay curious.
    5. Life is a gift that you must unwrap. It’s up to you to determine if what’s inside will lead you to happiness or dismay. You have the power to make that decision for yourself.

The Death of My 99-Year-Old Grandfather Made Me a Better Person [Lead by Example & Choose Your Examples Wisely]

That is what love is made of...

That is what love is made of…

My Grandfather passed away last week. 99!

Actually, 98 and 337 days…28 days shy of 99. I’ll round up.

One heck of a run.

Here’s what our train ride looked like to/from the funeral…

 

2 1/2 year old in car seat for 12 hours or the train for 12 hours? Neither.

A whirlwind of travel misery and death.

And profound life lessons.

A little background on the legend that is Pop-Pop…

  • December 5, 1916 – November 7, 2015
  • Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps
  • Four children, 10 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren.
  • Didn’t swear, smoke or drink.
    • The only drink he ever ordered was when he proposed to his lovely bride – Grandma, at Rockefeller Center. He ordered a whiskey sour, and “if you look there now, the full glass is still sitting there.”

Pop was an awesome dude. Cheerful. Kind. Always there with a joke and a smile. The most steadfast and consistent person I’ve ever met. If he said it, you know you could count on it.

He expected a lot out of you. But he didn’t make demands. He led with his actions, and you knew to follow suit.

He would say things like…

  • If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
  • The Marines have landed and the situation is well at hand.
  • The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.

Before giving a reading at the funeral (verse below), I said…

Pop is an amazing person. I’m honored to be up here. Gram and Pop are the example I live by every day.

Love you Gram

Love you Gram

With the passing of Gram and Pop, I’m left with the realization that I am now responsible for carrying on that example. Their legacy.

A bit cliché, but real.

It’s easy for examples to fade away. It’s difficult to choose the right examples. And even more difficult to follow that example.

When the end is in the future, examples remain examples. Ideals. When the end arrives, those ideals must be carried on. Or fade fast.

I’ve chosen the best possible example, and now it’s my turn to lead in the same way.

  • Always a smile to share.
  • Never a bad word for anyone.
  • A fighter for what I believe, but fight in the most loving way.
  • No complaints, angry faces, or mean-spirited actions.
  • Family is always the top priority, but love is all inclusive.

I am who I am, on so many levels, because of Gram and Pop’s love. I am the husband, father, and person that I am because of the lessons they passed on to me.

The brilliance of it all is Gram and Pop never once “taught” me a lesson. They passed on everything I need to know to live a good life and be a good person by just being themselves.

I am their legacy.

I wrote an essay for my college application about my Grandfather. I closed with…

I hope to make my Grandfather as proud of me as I am of him. 

20 years later, this is more important than ever.

The ideals that Gram and Pop lived by are in my hands. Their lessons live on through my actions.

An immediate jolt to responsibility.

I am a better person because Pop was in my life. The best example I’ve ever met.

Love you Pop. You will be missed. But your  legacy is safe with me.

1 Corinthians 13

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Do You Realize?

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. I guess on some level, it’s been knocking around the Dude’s noggin for years.

On September 5th my Grandmother passed away.

Grandma, Gram, Greatma. The Dude’s Mom’s Mom. The absolute epitome of a Grandmother.

Here we are 20 days later, and I’m just now getting around to putting pen to pad…or keystroke to keyboard. I can’t really explain my slow pace for turning this post around. I guess a life with kids is always an excuse, but that’s not really what held me up. It was more of a reluctance.

A reluctance to move on, a reluctance to face the closure, a reluctance to work through the feelings of mourning, a reluctance to let one of the last pieces of childhood fade away? Probably all of the above, but also a reluctance to the idea of my post not living up to  the amazing person that Gram is (she’ll always be in my heart, so I’m sticking with is rather than was).

The Dude has been blessed with some amazing genes. If my Grandparents are any sign of what’s to come, then Mrs. Dude is stuck with me for a long time. Gram passed away a month and a half before her 92nd birthday, and her amazing husband, Pop, is still watching the Yankees and doing his daily crossword puzzle  at the ripe age of 94.

92 years of life is amazing, and beyond just surviving for such a long period of time, Gram shared an infectious love with everyone she met for those 92 years. She had four children, 10 grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren. She definitely left a legacy, but that legacy is much more than the number of her offspring.

By the time someone you love reaches 92, it’s a safe bet that thoughts of their passing have crossed your mind. So, I’ve had time to ponder the importance that Gram holds for me. And it is a deep, down to my core, type of importance. But it is never fully understood until it is a reality. When that phone call comes, and that expected, yet dreaded, news is passed through the family.

I’ve had twenty days to let the reality sink in, and Gram’s importance to me grows everyday. But I’ve moved beyond my reluctance to falling short. I know my writing can never live up to the person that Martha Louise Olsen is. Words can’t capture how special she is and how she could warm people’s hearts by just being herself.

There are endless examples and stories to tell. We relived great memories when we celebrated her life at the funeral. Tea parties, surprises under our pillows, singing around the Christmas tree, tennis camp, hours spent traveling to soccer games, our favorite desserts. But to me, Gram’s lasting significance was as simple as it could be, love…and lots of it.

Gram always had a smile to share and never had a bad word for anyone. She was a fighter for what she believed in, but she would fight in the absolute most loving way. I never once heard a complaint, saw an angry face, or witnessed even the slightest mean-spirited action. Family was always the top priority, but her love stretched way beyond the family tree. Her love was all inclusive. And her husband, Pop, was the man she loved the most until the final breath of air.

I am who I am, on so many levels, because of Gram’s love. I am the husband, father, and person that I am because of the lessons that Gram passed on to me. And the brilliance of it all is the Gram never once “taught” me a lesson. She passed on everything I needed to know to live a good life and be a good person by just being who she was. Her love infected me from day one, and it will never let me go.

As I’ve pondered the passing of people I love over the years, I’ve had a song by the Flaming Lips that sticks with me. There are a lot of nice thoughts in the song, but one that stands out, and is fitting for this particular moment goes like this:

Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last

We’ll all be moving to the great unknown someday, but while we’re here, the most important thing we can do is share our love and let the people who are important to us know how much we care for them. When they are gone, they’re gone. I can’t tell Gram that I love her today, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt how much she loved me and she knows how much I love her.

The Dude family is basking in this love as well. We don’t let a day pass without saying those three magic words…many times. 🙂 It’s hard to make the good things last, so enjoy them while they are here, let them know how special they are…and fight like hell to keep them close.

Before I share the great Flaming Lips tune, I want to share a Bible verse. Stop choking, yes, a Bible verse. I believe this is the first time the Dude has quoted the Bible; not sure if/when it will happen again, so enjoy. This is a verse from Gram’s funeral service, and it captures Gram’s essence and her enduring lesson…plus, it uses the word “abide”…as in The Dude abides.

1 Corinthians 13
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Can I get an amen?!

And now on to the Flaming Lips, but before I go, I’ll sign off as I always do with Gram; “I love you Gram.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETI72zGyzZI&feature=related[/youtube]

On the Road

The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind. Two trips to Connecticut in two weeks. And by trips I mean car rides. And by two I don’t mean up and back; I mean up and back TWICE. For the record, that’s approximately 12 hours each way. But when you factor in a stop to rally the troops at my sister’s house, it’s more like 14+ door to door.

Ouch.

The first trip was a much needed visit to my Mother’s parents, i.e. my Grandparents. It had been a little over a year since we visited, and Gram and Pop had yet to meet Little Dude. Some QT was definitely a necessity.

However, there is no easy way to travel. After some hemming and hawing, we decided that Dude and Little Dude would hit the road on their own and rendezvous with the Lady in the Shoe, one of her many offspring, and my mother for a group trip in one minivan to CT. Makes the trip easier for everyone and saves quite a bit of cabbage…although the whole fam was missed.

It was a fantastic trip. Little Dude did much better in his seat than I expected…driving through the night is a must. So good to see my Grandparents and have them meet LD…GreatMa was the first to teach him how to clap! 🙂 It was a great opportunity for some Daddy/Little Dude bonding….it’s fun being his Dad. We even found time to add some flowers to their yard. All in all, a great trip, and we made it home safe and sound. Although, these before and after pictures describe the effects of traveling with a toddler pretty accurately:

On the Road - Before

On the Road - Before

On the Road - After

On the Road - After

Two days after arriving home, we received the unfortunate news that my Dad’s mother, aka Baba, passed away. And the services would be held in CT. Back to the road.

This time it was like my childhood revisited. The Dude, Mom, Dad, The Lady in the Shoe, and one of her many offspring piled in a minivan. Family roadtrip. I don’t think we made a trip like that since my sister was looking at colleges twenty years ago. Strange but fun.

Death tends to instigate reflection. It’s an opportunity to remember the life someone led and the effect they had on other people.

Driving in a car for 12+ hours also tends to instigate reflection. Quite the combo; faced with one of life’s most basic truths (i.e. death), and nothing but time to think about it. As the tires rolled along the highway, I filled my time with thoughts of the lasting effects Baba would leave with me.

It’s a deep thought process. What do we take from someone we love? How do they make us who we are?

Baba was a character. Many would categorize her as a disciplinarian…usually her family. But the flip side is that many would say how loving and generous she was. Complicated, but I guess everyone is.

I fall somewhere in the middle. As her second Grandchild, I was early in the cycle of her relaxing with age. I was exposed to her disciplinarian ways, but I never really took her seriously, and as the older sibling, the Lady in the Shoe was outspoken enough for both of us. Over the years, I developed a joking but loving relationship with Baba where she never forced discipline on me, but always offered a loving hug, smile and kind word.

In the end, I have nothing but fond memories of my time with Baba. As I rolled through the catalog of Baba memories, I searched for that lasting effect. The nugget that I would always say was Baba.

After a two day trip north, I still could not hit the bulls-eye. I wandered through memories, and smiled at the loving thoughts, but could not land on the life lessons I would hold close.

Then I went through the funeral process – the wake, pallbearer, and burial – and I realized that my thoughts didn’t need to be so deep. I didn’t need to look so hard for the lasting effects. Perhaps the process was needed to work through a loss, but the answer was much simpler.

Family.

That’s the lasting effect I take from Baba. Family. And the importance of holding family close.

This may seem like an odd lesson considering the trajectory of Baba’s life, but to me (and I think Baba in the end) it makes complete sense.

Baba was a fighter, and she could hold a grudge. I won’t pretend to know the difficulties she faced through her life or the experiences that shaped who she was, but I do know that she would tell you what she believed (right or wrong), and if you didn’t like it, she wasn’t afraid to cut you out of her life. Seems harsh. And it is. But it’s part of who she was.

As a result, there are groups of family members that we don’t knowt. But a funeral brings people together. It brings long-lost family out of hiding.

As I took in the funeral process, I realized how much family is connected…regardless of disagreements. Baba may have been a fighter, and probably alienated some folks, but family remains connected. Memories remain and similarities persist.

It is amazing to see a group of distant relatives in one room. Similar looks, similar memories, similar mannerisms. Connections that run deep, despite disagreements and separation.

Genetics is strong.

We may disagree – and maybe even dislike – members of our family, but in the end we are connected…and we will always be.

Baba was not the same person when she passed as she was throughout her life. I’m sure none of us are. We grow, mature, and relax. As I said, I have fond and loving memories of Baba, and despite any imperfections, this is the woman I know she was; kind, loving, and an outspoken fighter for what she believed to be right.

Baba loved her family. Despite disagreements, that love was strong. Families do not  always get along, but the love that she shared with her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids was evident and passed down through the generations.

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

— inaccurately attributed to
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love this quote. I think it is a great description of a life well lived, and I can unequivocally confirm that Baba lived a great life according to this standard.

I am a better person for knowing and being loved by her. I can’t pinpoint that single lesson that Baba bestowed, but I know that I am who I am as a result of having her in my life and the genetics passed down the long line to me.

Baba, I love you. You will be missed, but I smile when I think of the great life you lived. Thank you for being the person you are.