Month: May 2018

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More Than Memory

We throw hats. And then we lay flowers.

What an odd weekend we’ve given ourselves here.

It’s easy to miss. Heaven knows I usually do. On the one hand, we send our young people into the world with love and benedictions and way too many recitations of “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.” And then we’re asked to stop a moment for those who have already left the world, wanting to protect it and to build a better one.

Graduation day. Memorial Day. We set them side by side: the flag and the Mylar balloon, the endless drone of “Pomp and Circumstance” and the quiet sound of “Taps.” It’s the strangest of couples, as if someone wanted to talk about Batman and Hammerstein, or Ernie and Juliet.

And yet, it does fit.

It all starts with the quiet.

That may sound even stranger. After all, between graduation parties, backyard grills, and the Indy 500, this can be a loud and busy time. Too busy for some. From the 1870s to today, it’s been traditional to lament that the fun side of Memorial Day (and Decoration Day before it) has overwhelmed the call to stop and reflect, that we’re doing it wrong.

Which, now that I think about it, is a strange way to put it. Because uniquely among American holidays, we’re not asked to “do” anything on Memorial Day. Not buy presents or string lights. Not fire rockets and sing songs. Not pass around cardboard hearts, or drink green beer, or talk like a pirate from a bad Errol Flynn movie.

What we’re asked to do is remember. But that’s only the start.

Because memory unacted on is lost.

Our recent graduates can attest to that, or soon will. Most spent hours trying to memorize as much as possible for their final exams. (Or desperately wishing they had.) At this time next year, most of those answers will be gone – except maybe for some lasting embarrassment at writing “Lin-Manuel Miranda” instead of “Alexander Hamilton” on a history test.

What will stay, or should, is the memory of how to think, how to research, how to organize, how to interact with others in a productive way, and even how weird and amazing other people can be. Why? Because that’s what you did. That’s what you practiced. That’s what you learned.

So this Memorial Day, after memory – what next?

It’s good to remember the fallen. It’s necessary to tell the stories, to raise the ghosts, to bring their memories to life again. But if the sun sets and the memory falls back into the dust until next year, how much respect have we really shown?

Memory unacted on is lost. And the way to act is to build.

Build the world they wanted to see and never did.

Build anew the freedoms that were worth their life – including the freedom to argue and disagree, to challenge and question, to preserve the nation by daring to examine and even improve its underpinnings.

Respect, yes. Live together as a nation, yes. But even more so, live together as a free nation, recognizing how many ways there are to live in freedom. And stand together against those would abridge even an inch of it.

Just as those we honor once stood.

It’s not about glory and uniforms and parades. It’s not about watchfulness and fear. It’s about carrying on a promise.

Remember. Then act. That’s how we learn. And it’s how we create something worth remembering.

Shall we commence?

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That is The Question

Every so often, the human race finds itself dealing with the Big Questions. “What is the greatest good?” “Paper or plastic?” “Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?”

Now, it looks like we get to add another one to the list: “Yanny or Laurel?”

Umm – can we get back to the chewing gum?

If you’ve missed the latest minor craze on social media, welcome back to Earth and I hope you’ll take me with you when you leave again. Yanny or Laurel is a brief sound clip that dares to ask “How long will you listen to a bad recording that didn’t hit No. 1 on Billboard?” You push Play to hear a garbled word, decide if the speaker is saying “Laurel” or “Yanny” and then share your findings online to begin a calm, reasoned discussion of the matter.

OK, just kidding. You pop online to join the cheering section for your word of choice, often with an enthusiasm for the “obvious” choice that could get you on nine out of 10 American game shows. (Come back to “Jeopardy!” when you’ve calmed down a bit.)

The thing is, it’s actually not that hard to find the answer. Besides the fact that “Yanny” isn’t even a word (unless you’re misspelling Greek New Age musicians), it only takes a little hunting on the Web to read an account from the teens who started all this. It began when they played an online vocabulary page for the word “laurel,” realized each of them were hearing different tones, and sent it out to the world.

But that would be too easy. Like the “blue dress/gold dress” Facebook photo before this, Yanny or Laurel isn’t about learning the right answer. It’s about knowing what you heard and insisting on its rightness to the world.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

A lot of politics – heck, a lot of what passes for online discussion these days – seems to be a longer game of Yanny or Laurel. It doesn’t matter if facts can be found and myths can be busted in less time than it takes to ruin the Colorado Rockies’ pennant chances. What matters is picking your team, shouting your slogan, and remaining impervious to any attempts at reason or compromise.

Sure, it’s annoying – but only when those guys do it. It’s easy to fall into the same trap. Studies suggest that the wiring of our brains makes us want to fit in rather than break with the crowd – it’s easier and more satisfying to simply join the crowd of people who believe the same things we want to believe, than it is to examine those beliefs and see if they hold up.

It’s not inevitable. But like running marathons instead of watching six hours of YouTube, changing the habit takes work that’s usually uncomfortable and sometimes acutely painful. It takes curiosity and a willingness to ask the next question. Even with something that seems obvious. Especially then.

More than once, I’ve quoted the distinguished philosophers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel: “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” When we can beat that reflex, any question can become interesting. Even “Yanny or Laurel?” can start a long discussion on why some people hear certain tones, or whether we all experience the same reality.

It’s worthwhile. But it takes effort.

You can’t just rest on your Laurels.

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A Mother by Any Other Name

The siren call takes many forms. But the intent is unmistakable.

“Moooooooommmmmmm!”

“Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mom!”

“Mommy?”

And when the call goes up, so does Heather. To get Missy some more tea. To hunt up some art supplies. To listen to a question, or unlace a pair of shoes, or smile at how Missy has dressed herself with two odd socks and an inside-out shirt.

It’s all in the job description. Even if it’s not necessarily the traditional job.

For our developmentally disabled ward Missy, “Mom” has always been more of a job description than a literal relationship. Her own birth mother, Heather’s grandma, died 10 years ago, three years before Heather and I became Missy’s guardians and caregivers. Missy has certainly never forgotten her, something we’re reminded of each April when she becomes a little sad and quiet around the time Grandma Val passed.

But Missy – who sometimes seems to be 4, sometimes 14, and sometimes 44, depending on the situation – takes a very practical approach to life. If you are living with her, loving her, and providing her with the care she needs, you are “Mom.” Sometimes regardless of gender – I’ve been “Mom” a few times in the grocery store (along with “Daddy,” “He,” and many times “Frank,” the name of her late father).

The more I think about it, the more I figure Missy has it exactly right. If you are taking on Mom’s role, you are Mom. Never mind the genes. Never mind the spot on the family tree. Never mind how a dozen dictionaries define the word.

Wil Wheaton once said that being a nerd isn’t about what you love, it’s about how you love it. I think you could say something similar about being a mom – it’s not who you care for, it’s about how you care for them.

And so, mothers everywhere, by any name and description – each year, Mother’s Day is for you, too.

You may be raising the children you brought into this world yourself.

You may be raising a family that’s more blended than a Dairy Queen blizzard, with “halfs” and “steps” and other prefixes that only matter to a genealogist.

You may be the guardian to someone who needs your care and attention to get through the day, whatever their age.

You may be the grown child who has suddenly had to become the parent to a parent, keeping a heart-wrenching watch that could never be fully described to another.

For you, and for the many others besides – you have claimed the name. You have taken up the mantle. You have assumed the duty with all its care, pain, and sudden crises at 3 o’clock in the morning.

You are Mom. And Mother’s Day belongs to you. (Heck, every day belongs to you. But Hallmark and FTD have to make their money somewhere.)

So this day and every day, thank you.

It’s not enough. Somewhere between “Stop yelling at the dog!” and “Why are you being so quiet?”, you get taken for granted. That’s the way of most good things in life – we assume they’re just there, invisible and vital as oxygen, until the moment reminds us how vital, how essential.

And in that moment, we don’t care what anyone calls you.

You are Mom.

And that’s enough.

Thank you, Heather my love.

Thank you, all.

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Making the Jump

At age seven, I had no doubt about it. Han Solo was the coolest guy in the universe.

OK, Luke Skywalker was the one I wanted to be – I mean, Jedi powers and a lightsaber, right? But Han didn’t need them. He was the guy who could do anything. Fly through asteroid fields. Talk to Wookiees. Ride into savage blizzards just to save a friend. Heck, he even tried to gun down Darth Vader himself. Sure, it didn’t work, but the man knew an opportunity, right?

But even cool guys have their moments. And one of Han’s has stuck with me down the years.

If you’ve seen The Empire Strikes Back (so, most of you), you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was the film’s major running gag. Han and his friends are in a tight spot in the Millennium Falcon, the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Han’s gained a little distance, and is ready to jump to light speed and leave trouble behind … and the hyperdrive fails.

Once. Twice. Even a third time, with a friend at the controls.

“It’s not my fault!”

I may have never had to fast-talk space gangsters, or outshoot stormtroopers, or snatch a princess from the Death Star. But I could surely empathize with that one.

You try. You try. And you try again. And it seems like absolutely nothing happens.

My wife Heather is the master of this. Over the years, she’s endured more chronic illnesses than Jabba the Hutt has bounty hunters. Crohn’s disease. Ankylosing spondylitis. Multiple sclerosis. A host of situations and medications that send my spell-checker screaming for help, or at least extra vowels.

Once in a while, we beat one, like the endometriosis that finally submitted to surgery. And sometimes, we get long quiet spells where life is almost normal. But then there are the other nights.

The ones where the current medicines don’t work. And the alternatives are all on the “allergy list.”

The ones where the “MS fog” is too thick to read a book. Or where the pain and fatigue make even ordinary task into Olympian ones.

The ones where you’re doing everything the doctors have said, everything your friends have suggested, everything you can think of yourself – and nothing seems to change.

Oh, yes. We’ve been there.

Most of us have.

Not necessarily with chronic illness. But we’ve all had the situation that refused to yield. Professional frustration. Personal grief. A family situation that seems implacable. Whatever it is, it leaves you running in place, wondering if progress is possible. Wondering if progress even exists. As Shel Silverstein put it, in his dark take on The Little Engine That Could, “If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain’t enough!”

Funny enough, George Lucas himself had his own story there. He described his first six years in the film business as “hopeless.” His father had wanted him to go into office supplies instead, and for a little while, George may have been wondering if he was right.

“There are a lot of times where you sit and say ‘Why am I doing this? I’ll never make it,’” he said in an interview. “I’d borrowed money from my parents. I’d borrowed money from friends. It didn’t look like I was going to be able to pay anyone back.”

Then came American Graffiti. And a few years later, Star Wars – a film that almost everyone believed would bomb, including Lucas himself, until it spectacularly didn’t.

Stories change. Without warning.

Not without effort. Not without help – even Han needed a hand fixing the hyperdrive. And not with any guarantee.

But surprising things can happen if you give them the chance.

Heather and I have seen it. Not the magic “happy ever after” that leaves you with a gold medal, a space princess, and a three-picture deal. But victories that have let us grab back pieces of normality, and even become caregivers ourselves.

We dared to hope.

And hope, it turns out, can be a pretty impressive Force.