On Father's Day

My brother once said, "Let's face it. My dad was a scalawag."

Truer words have never been spoken. I, myself, would have said 'scallywag' but that's a choice of personal style.

We rarely saw Daddy and, when we did, pretty much everything was about him.

Did that mean we didn't love him? No. It mostly just meant every hope we ever had was tinged with the fear of disappointment. In those all-important formative years, my mind generalized his lack of dependability, causing it to color all my experiences.

I'm all grown up now. Master of my little domain. And still afraid to genuinely, truly, with all my heart, put my faith in anyone.

The most difficult times for me are the ones when I fear I've let down my children.

My husband didn't always understand that. He does now... at least, a little bit.

He used to be a scallywag. How did I let myself end up with one of those? I'm not really sure. Maybe I subconsciously thought it was the best I could do. And at least, when you know they're scallywags from the get-go, you don't get disappointed. There are all kinds of scientific studies on why girls with bad fathers grow up to be women with bad husbands, so my behavior at least can be statistically explained.

We've been married more than a decade now and something amazing happened along the way. My husband developed qualities I never thought I'd see in him.

Here's the truth, as difficult as it is for me to comprehend, much less outwardly express: The man is not a scallywag.

He can drive me crazy as few other people ever could. On any given day, he'll get on my nerves a half-dozen times. But, even as I grit my teeth, I know he's only getting on my nerves because he's there to do it.

When it comes to our children, he made the internal commitment, at some point along the way, to be engaged. And he's kept that commitment.

He's been there for last-minute white-shirt-needed-before-tonight's-chorus-concert excursions. He's frequently hunted and gathered at the grocery store and thrown together something edible and, occasionally, even tasty. He's done laundry. He doesn't hang or fold, so it all ends up wrinkly, but at least it's clean. He's hugged away tears and doctored scraped knees. He's taken little ones to school and gotten them home. He's sat through parent-teacher conferences and doctor appointments and sometimes even evidenced good sense. He's built a 3D topographical map of the state and got a B on it. He's played Simon during our American Idol rounds on long car drives. He's thrown steaks on the grill and lunch money into backpacks. He's dug holes so the children could bury beloved pets.

Granted, he's sometimes slow to act. He waits to see if I'll get there first. And he punctuates most of his activities with words I'd prefer the children not mimic. But, all in all, he's not so bad. And he could be much, much worse.

When my children look back on their shared childhood, he will be as much a part of their memories as I will. Because he cares enough to be there.

I'm doing what I can to ensure he has a good Father's Day. But he won't be expecting too much. Because he knows what all good fathers have figured out. Every day is Children's Day.

Summer's Song

The start of summer always brings a lot of excitement around our house as we look forward to all the things we hope to do together. If this year's like others, we'll get around to most of them. Some, though, likely will be forgotten, overridden by events, or deemed impossible.

Even as summer begins, I feel a sense of melancholy. I know how fleeting the season will be, how little time we have before cold weather returns. But then, it's likely the knowledge that it won't last that makes it so very precious.

I wrote the words below as last summer ended. I'm posting them below as a reminder to myself to make the most of what we have.


Summer's Song

The summer sky seems endless
But I know it isn’t true.
The cold will soon be on us
And I’ll say goodbye to you.

If I could, I’d stop the time,

And summer wouldn’t die.
And we would play together
‘Neath that endless summer sky.

Summer’s song runs through my mind.
It wants me in my dreams.
But when I see the sunrise,
It’s all cracking at the seams.

I feel so lost and friendless
But I know it isn’t true.
The cold can’t come between us
If I keep my thoughts on you.

If I could, and I stopped time,
And summer wouldn’t die.
We wouldn’t stay together
‘Neath that empty summer sky.

Summer’s song runs through my mind.
It taunts me in my dreams.
But when I see the sunset,
It’s all cracking at the seams.

The summer sky seems endless
But I know it isn’t true.
Before the cold’s upon us
I will say goodbye to you.

Spring would never come for us
If summer didn’t die.
I long to play together
‘Neath the dawning summer sky.

Summer’s song runs through my mind.
It haunts me in my dreams.
But when I see the sunset,
It’s all cracking at the seams.

If I could, I’d move up time,
Not watch this summer die.
For we will play together
‘Neath next summer’s perfect sky.

Summer’s song runs through my mind.
It haunts me in my dreams.
But when I watch the sunset,
How much prettier it seems.

Connected... but not

I attended a high school graduation ceremony last night (Congratulations, Jon!).

Watching all the kids saying their goodbyes, I was reminded of how different the world is from how it was when I graduated in the Dark Ages.

Back then, we meant it when we said, "Goodbye." We had house-phone numbers and physical addresses for the people who mattered most but, aside from them, the only chance we'd have of catching up with classmates was to run into them at the grocery store or something. If we called someone and he or she wasn't home, we didn't get to talk.

Even as kids left the ceremony last night with their families and friends, a great many were on their phones, sharing the night's excitement with the people on the other ends of the connections.

With cell phones and social media sites, kids of today don't really have to make much of an effort to stay in touch. Everyone's just... there. A few clicks away.

But are they really there?

In some ways, I think we had it better in the old days. When we did get around to engaging with someone, we really engaged.

Text messages and social media sites work great as supplemental forms of communication for people who see each other often. Social media sites also are great for strangers who've met rarely, if at all, and who first come to know each other through those sites.

I'm not so sure of their value when it comes to maintaining contact with people we used to know.

For people who want to keep the friendships, the new media can be an in-your-face reminder that friends have moved on. And for the friends moving on, the new media can prompt daily guilt pangs. They see their old friends right there in their lists but maybe lack the time or the inclination to talk to them. And some people are so wrapped up in maintaining their virtual lives that they don't have time for real ones.

When I was young, my world was small, but that made it easier to find my place within it. I didn't really have to worry that a clumsy or otherwise embarrassing moment would be captured for all posterity. I felt free to take chances, to try and to fail. People weren't as cruel, back then, as they are now. The rudeness that began with anonymous internet posting and evolved to by-name flame wars online has shattered the boundaries of acceptable treatment of others in the real world.

I can't help but wonder about the effects the Technological Revolution will have on today's kids as they mature and take their places in society. And what will the ripple effects mean for society?

I feel, in some ways, quality of communication has been sacrificed for quantity. Privacy has been slashed to pieces in the interest of sharing.

People scream their lives for the world to see. But, given that everybody's screaming, is anybody really listening? Are we paying attention in ways that can make a difference?

We learn what someone's dog ate for lunch. We read about the guy who cut someone off in traffic. We see pictures of shoes that are just so adorable to people we're never going to see wearing them.

I get frustrated with myself because I read the inane things people blast. It's disgusting to me that, with all the things I need to get done, I'm scrolling through screens and screens of NOTHING. But if I go online, I need to look for things that might be important. Because, if I don't, my friends there will know I came on and talked to other people but not them. And that might hurt their feelings. Especially if they posted something that really mattered.

And when I finally do get to posts about SOMETHING, I'm often sorry they're there.

We find out somebody's spouse or boss is a jerk. That kind of post can make a real difference... but usually not in a good way.

We find out someone's having health or financial problems and we don't know what to type. In the real world, we wouldn't need words. But when words are all we have, we desperately want to get them right. And, all too often, we fail.

The posts that most trouble me are the ones by parents publicly complaining about their kids. A lot of those kids have accounts and, even if they don't, they probably will at some point... and their friends and enemies might already. Nothing on the internet can be trusted to go away. How betrayed are children going to feel when they see proof of what their parents once said about them, for all the world to see?

And, of course, there's always the possibility that something meant for a select few gets blasted to the world. That kind of thing doesn't happen when you engage personally. You know who's at the table with you.

Once bitten, twice shy, they say. As people get burned with the public revelations, they become more careful. They take their private issues back to private places. The result is that, over time, the percentage of inanity goes up and up and up.

I think the free-for-all internet's days are numbered. Over time, people will increasingly find better things to do with their time than read about nothing. I think the mega-sites will increasingly have to cater to the true public interest and offer more possibilities for people to create small, private circles made up of people who have the same interests and who can trust each other to care when they really have something to say. At least, I hope so.

I long for the good old days, when being connected to someone really meant something.