My uncle in Houston recently passed away and his funeral was
being planned on the same day as a planned trip to Dallas to watch the red
headed David Beckham, my five year grandson, Noah, play futbol.
I called my son Matt to check on start times and talk to him
about my choices. Should I go see the
grandson ply his soccer skills or should I do the right family thing and make
the trek to Houston to pay respects?
I wasn’t completely flummoxed, I knew what I should do, I
was caught between doing what I wanted to do and doing what was the right thing
to do.
Marty was always my go to person when I was dealing with a
conundrum, when I wasn’t flummoxed but needed a push in the right direction. Marty had an internal compass to help point
the way and she was never reluctant to tell me where to go and how to get
there.
The strokes really burned out that compass. She’s a good listener and incredibly
supportive of whatever I decide but she is not so much for the advice anymore.
I have a core group of people I turn to when I need to
intellectually bounce things around, when I need to check my own moral
compass. My daughter is great to talk to
about dealing with people. She has her
mother’s intuitive approach to humanity.
My daughter-in-law keeps me in line socially; she helps me
navigate the rather strange waters of being polite. My son-in-law is the out of the box thinker,
the one that sees a different way to approach a problem; he keeps us all from
group think.
This one was for Matt, our son. He can be my moral compass. It’s not that he is “better than” or even
thinks he is “better than”, he just has his mother’s compass. Like everyone else I know he doesn’t always
go where the compass points, but, like his mother he knows where it’s pointing,
and, like me, he feels appropriately guilty when he ignores the needle. He is an amalgam of his mother and father.
We talked and I told him my dilemma, which really wasn’t a
dilemma; it was a case of want to versus an important need to and I already knew
that. He told me a story (that technique
sounds vaguely familiar) about Noah, his five year old not wanting to get up
for school. The kid likes school, he
just doesn’t want to get up and do the morning get ready hustle. Matt told him that sometimes in life we have
to do some things we may not want to, but we do them because they are
important. Again, it all sounds vaguely familial
(not a typo).
Family, my family has become central to Marty and me. In living my very important ego driven
pre-stroke life I too often neglected family.
I talked a good game but my follow through kind of sucked. That has changed; Marty’s illness has taught
me the importance of family.
Sometimes a family fragments when something catastrophic occurs,
not mine. My entire family, our kids,
their spouses, my parents, my brother, my sister, their kids have all rallied
around Marty. They have loved her, they
have loved me, and they have unconditionally supported both of us. Marty, in her own way has taught us all about
the importance of closeness. She, at
least in my mind, has helped me find my family again.
I went to the funeral; I will go to one of Noah’s soccer
matches another time. I didn’t go to the
funeral because I am a helleva guy, we have covered that before. I didn’t go because of some sense of familial
obligation or even because we sometimes have to do some hard things.
I went because Marty taught me the importance of family; I
went because, as my little brother said, it’s family. Family is a big deal to me. I admit it wasn’t always so, I now understand
why it is a huge deal.
I know what Marty would have told me to do because her
legacy, her children told me.
