SolandMonica.com

It’s been a while since I posted.  The simple reason is that life is hectic as a single dad.  Not only do I contend with the “tyranny of the urgent”, but if you know Kai, you know that he is one of the most energetic kids you’ll ever meet.  That being said, probably the greater truth is that I’ve struggled with the realization that most of the time I feel like posting, it has been about something kind of negative.  I don’t want to be the downer in someone’s day, so I usually just skip the posting.

The weeks leading up to the anniversary of Monica’s passing were the hardest yet.  It was almost unimaginable to think that after almost a full year of grieving I was still finding new lows.  There didn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel.  I decided to take the day off on May 11th and just spend some “me” time.  I turned my phone off and didn’t check any email or FaceBook messages (a quick thank you to everyone who did try to reach out to me and Kai on that day.  I apologize for not getting back to you all, but there really were an overwhelming number of people to get back to. I just skipped it all.) 

Something interesting happened… I spent the day playing and writing music, and by the end of the day I really felt a lot better.  It was the first encounter of “joy” I’d had in a long time.  It was such a contrast to the lows I had been feeling, that I felt like I was soaring or something.  It was really encouraging to realize that I could still experience joy like that.

A couple of weeks later Kai and I received another gift.  Our church, Whittier Area Community, was doing its annual serve weekend and our back yard was one of the projects.  We ended up having so many people come to help and show their love, that not only did the backyard get a total makeover, but many of the projects I couldn’t get to inside the house got done too.  It was an incredibly humbling experience that we will be eternally grateful for.  If you were one of the many people that helped out at our house for serve weekend, please know that you really made a difference to us.  During a time of faith struggles, sadness, and a blurry outlook on hope, you guys represented the love of Christ and the church with elegance and grace.

I’m so pleased to be able to finally post something positive. 

After serve weekend, our backyard looks amazing!

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It’s somewhat of a miracle, but we got completely moved this weekend! Thanks to everyone who helped:
my mom, the Jasper family, Kyle, the Hobsons, Ken and Sunshine, Megan, Keri and Claire, Shelly, Veronica, Vicky, Regina, Betty and the kids, Ryan, the Harts, Bill from Blue Collar Prophets, Dave and Alex Hofstetter, Chris and Robert form Top Gun, the Olbrantz’s… and probably a few more that I am forgetting due to all the hustle and bustle going on.

It really takes a load off to know that everything is moved, but the next challenge will be unpacking! Poor Kai: this morning he wanted yogurt, but I couldn’t find the spoons! Then he asked for peanut butter and sugar (since we use natural/unsweetened pb) but I couldn’t find the sugar! I spent 20 minutes looking for some hair gel and finally decided to get to work on time with a messy head. ;p

Other challenges include no toilet all weekend until last night, no showers/bath (hopefully they will be done tomorrow), and no hot water. The hot water is a mystery. The water heater is on and it feels warm, but the hot water never comes out of the faucets (even after waiting 15min). If anyone has plumbing skills, please let me know. The house is cold too. The thermostat was removed when we started painting and it hasn’t been put back yet, so I couldn’t turn the heater on last night. I bundled up Kai with a few layers and put a space heater in his room. Luckily it hasn’t been too cold.

Besides all that, the one thing that’s at the forefront for me right now is that I got sick this weekend. After going a long time without getting sick, this weekend finally took it’s toll on me. I’m sicker than I’ve been in a long time. I wanted to stay home and sleep today, but I knew the workers would be there working on the bathrooms. I probably wouldn’t have laid down anyways because there is so much work to do unpacking. Between the stress of moving, the cement dust from the bathroom crew, and the cold house, it looks like I’ll be fighting a cold while unpacking. I couldn’t wait to find the packed Puffs tissues and Nyquill, I went straight to the store to get a fresh box. Nothing beats Puffs with Lotion!

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I know this weekend isn’t a great weekend because it’s Valentine’s Day on Sunday, but if anyone is available early Saturday morning, even for just an hour, I can use all the help I can get. So far only one person has offered to help (thank you very much by the way ). I will also be packing Thursday and Friday evenings if those nights are any better.

It’s always hard asking for help. It was before Monica got sick and even more so since she’s been gone, but I have to swallow my pride now and just ask…

Thanks.

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Things are going really well with the house. I know what you’re thinking… “Where are the pictures?” Ooops… I forgot about that. I’ll try to take some this week. Mostly we’ve been fixing it up. I wish I had taken some “before” pictures so I could show a before/after comparison, but I’ve never been good about taking pictures -Monica always had that covered.

I have to give a special thanks to the guys in my Top Gun Men’s Bible study who have helped a ton, and to our friends Ken and Sunshine who have really come through in a major way. Ken’s grandpa even came to help. He owns a paint gun and painted the entire interior by himself!!! I’ve also had visitors from out of town come to help. This weekend Monica’s sister, Karen, came from Washington DC to help out and a couple of weeks a go an old friend from high school came out.

I plan to start actually moving this week, and hope to be moved this weekend. There is still a lot of work to be done though (mostly packing), and I could use any help I can get. This week in the evenings I will be packing. If anyone is available to watch Kai or to come help us pack, please let me know. I will also need help this weekend moving the bigger stuff. If anyone has a truck and/or can come out Saturday morning to lend a hand, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

We’re getting pretty excited about moving. Kai loves playing in his new back yard already, and I’m really looking forward to having back yard get-togethers and barbecues.

Thanks in advance for everybody’s help!

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So it’s been at least 2 years that we’ve been looking, twenty or thirty offers, and easily over a hundreds homes we’ve seen, and this week it finally happens: we are getting a new house!

I hadn’t mentioned anything until now because several other offers/escrows fell through, so I was being cautious. This time it’s a done deal. Escrow closes on Thursday. There are so many mixed emotions. Monica would have loved it. It has everything she was looking for. It even has a bay window with a window bench. She always dreamed of that. Kai is pretty excited about the back yard too. He says he wants to build a playground back there!

The house is still in Whittier, so everything else remains consistent. I’ve already got some friends coming out this weekend (if the weather permits) to help me clean the place up a bit. I imagine I’ll be working on it every weekend, and most week days too. It’s a fixer, but it’s a good house. I’m going to take the whole month to move in slowly and fix it up before everything is actually moved.

Pray for sanity logistically and emotionally. These days, getting up out of bed is hard enough; moving our lives to a new house seems practically unachievable…

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This has been one tough year. My grandmother passed away a few days ago. I am getting ready to head out to Arizona for her funeral this weekend and I’m a bit nervous. I’ve been able to contain quite a bit, but I’m hoping this isn’t “the straw that broke the camel’s back”…..

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It’s been a while since I updated.  There’s been a lot to do since I’ve been home, and I still feel like I’m catching up with things that were neglected; having been gone for almost a month.  It was worth it though.  In the meantime, I think I happened to discover the secret to the appeal of Twitter and Facebook: you only have to write a few lines and you’re done!  For some reason, writing a blog post seems to require writing something of real value and fore thought… and time.

Anyways, traveling was great!  My friend Jason and I went to New York City, Washington DC, Portland, OR, and Chicago.  Each city really had a lot to offer, but I have to say that I really fell in love with New York.  Under different circumstances, I would move there tomorrow.  I don’t know that I would stay there forever, but to experience it for a while would be a thrill.  

DC and Chicago were also fantastic.  These cities have some of the most amazing sights, people, and food in the world.  I was also really impressed by their pride of ownership; the people seem to want to make their city great.

Of course we had many adventures along the way, but to go into detail here would take way too much time typing.  If you want to go out for coffee and some stimulating conversation, I’d be happy to tell you all about it sometime.

After asking about the trips, most people have been asking about Kai.  He’s almost 3 1/2 now!  He’s really developed a sense of humor.  It’s as if he understands comic nuances like timing and irony.  He’s actually really funny; not just for a three year old.  I think he’s discovered he can get more attention that way, and he might even be becoming somewhat of a class clown.  His pre-school friends get so excited when he shows up (usually late) to school. 

He’s having as much fun as any three year old might be having, but he’s also starting to become more aware of the fact that all his friends have mommies and he doesn’t.  He still asks for “Mommy” almost every day even though he knows she’s gone.  I don’t know where he comes up with some of the stuff he says, but he tries so hard to express his feelings.  For example, the other day he said, “Dadoo, my heart is gone.  It’s looking for my Mommy,” or “my heart hurts because it can’t find my Mommy.”  Sometimes he pretends that his stuffed animals are sad because their mommy died too.  It never ceases to break my heart over and over again.  The one positive aspect (so I’ve been told) is that at least he is able to talk about it…

As for me, I’m keeping busy.

P.S. Yesterday was 6 months…

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This weekend is the first weekend for my month long, jet-setting, cross country mini vacations using the Jetblue “all-you-can-jet” pass.  In fact, I’m in New York as I write this.  I’ll be sure to provide updates about each trip, but in the meantime I’m still digesting the culture shock of being in New york. 

On another note, over the last week and a half I’ve sprouted a whole new crop of gray hair!  I don’t know if there’s any siginificance to that except that I’m getting older, but that may have been more of a shock than the culture shock of New York! 

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Even though life has been a bit difficult lately, I’m happy to say that there are some exciting things on the horizon that I’m really looking forward to. 

This weekend I’m going deep sea fishing with a few of my good buddies.  I’ve recently discovered that I really enjoy fishing, especially deep sea fishing.  It’s going to be a great guy’s getaway.  I can’t wait ’til Kai gets a bit older and I can take him too!

The next bit of news (and probably the news I’m most excited about) is that I will be sending my band’s third full length CD to press this week.  Even though the band hasn’t “officially” been together for years, we’ve been getting together here and there to be creative and have fun.  We ended up recording a full length CD in the process!  I think it is by far the best stuff we’ve ever done.  We spent all our creative energy on the songwriting and recording instead of preparing for live shows, so the final product has an increased level of maturity and professionalism over previous projects.  I don’t know what we’ll do with the CDs yet since the band isn’t performing live, but I’m excited about it anyways; even if they all sit in my garage for the next couple years.   I’ll post some links to some samples of the music soon. 

Actually, the last song on Monica’s Memorial Slide Show is a song from the new CD.  In fact, the first day we started recording (almost 2 yars ago) was the day we got back her biopsy results.  We were all pretty upset, but she insisted that we continue recording.  The whole time she was sick she encouraged me to continue recording.  I always appreciated how supportive she was of my music.  She gave up a lot of time to allow me to write and record music while she took care of Kai and dealt with the chemo fatigue.  I consider the CD as a gift from her that she would not let me refuse.  I know she would be proud of it.

The last bit of news is that I bought an “All-You-Can-Jet” pass from Jet Blue for the month of September.  Jet Blue is currently having a promotion that for one price, you can fly as much as you want from Sept 8 – Oct 8.  Get ready, ’cause I’m planning on taking many of you up on offers to come visit you in your town!  I don’t have any definitive plans yet but I know I will be needing a lot of babysitters, so if anyone is available, let me know. 

Thanks for all the prayers of support and encouragement.  Last week’s low has been replaced with a bit of optimism for the near future, and I know that it has everything to do with your prayers.

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Today was the first day in a long time that I didn’t have something specific planned or something unfinished that couldn’t wait.  I left Kai’s sippy cups unwashed.  They can wait ’til the morning.  I’m even writing this post at a decent hour.  It was nice, in a way, to have a free moment.  As things start to slow down and life starts to seek its equilibrium, I wonder what’s next. 

Most of my life has been blessed to a point where I never really felt penetrating, genuine sadness.  Sure I had a few low moments in life, but never anything that didn’t pass quickly.  Obviously, this is different.  Since Monica passed, I have been experiencing that deep sadness.  Somehow I’ve been able to manage it though.  I’ve been able to justify that, since anyone would be sad in this situation, it’s ok to allow those emotions in.  It would be more troublesome if I didn’t allow myself to feel those emotions.  It isn’t always comfortable or “fun”, but I’ve decided it’s healthier to feel the sadness than to repress it.  That cerebral justification has allowed me to cope with the depth of the emotion.

Recently, though, I realized the recipe has changed.  A new ingredient has been added and it changes the flavor of the entire mix.  Recently I’ve felt loneliness.  I’ve experienced loneliness before in life, but it was never mixed with sadness; certainly not deep, genuine sadness.  It’s a potent mix. 

How are you supposed to not feel lonely when you still feel lonely around other people?

The rest of this week I’ve got a lot of plans, so I’ll be keeping myself busy.  That seems to help in the short term.  Beyond that I have to decide whether I want to continue slowing down, or keep my schedule packed tight.

Since I know everyone is wondering how Kai is doing, I would say he is doing better.  His temperament is evening out a bit.  He still talks about Mommy a lot and he says he misses her, but he doesn’t seem to be as emotional when he talks about her.  He has been asking me lately if I will go to the clouds with him so we can see Mommy in heaven.  It makes me smile and cry at the same time.

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