Don't Step on My Catheter

Don't Step on My Catheter
by Michael H. Schwartz

Don't even think about treading on
That tempting little hose of soft clear
. plastic lying on the floor
There are plenty enough ways to
Incur my wrath without committing
That most heinous act of barbarism.

Mind your step, you fool, watch
Where you put those uncoordinated
. blobs you call your feet.
Its not just the punishment
That should prompt alertness on
Your part, nor even humanitarian

Compassion to guide your steps aright.
But think on this, the balance
Of all the laws of physics and the
Cosmic glue that holds the
Universe together, lie at risk

Of total disintegration at
The touch of toe on tube.

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One Year Later

It was one year ago today that my father passed away. I'm still learning how to wrap my brain around this fact. I keep wanting to call or email him. His email address is still sitting there in my address book while his instant messenger icon keeps telling me he's not available.

So much has happened in the past year: I finally quit my job, I'm back in college, I'm pregnant. Dad would have been thrilled about all of these things.

At his funeral, a family friend stood up and told us about a time she went to visit him in the hospital. Before she left, she asked him if there was anything specific he would like her to pray for on his behalf. He paused to think for a while, and then, at a time when any one else would pray for the pain to stop, or a cure for cancer, or wisdom for the doctors or something else along those lines, my dad said this:

"Pray that my conversations will be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, and that I will have the strength and wisdom to answer any question that is asked of me."

Yes, my father was something of a poet, but this was actually a paraphrase of a bible verse.

This quote of my father has stuck with me over the past year. First of all, my conversations could most certainly use more grace. I've been told over and over and over again that I can only control my own reaction in a conversation. The truth is that there are ways to counter hate and bigotry gracefully. I just have to learn how to do it and then I need to teach my child.

The second part of that statement has stuck to me as well. My father was a quiet man and was not in the habit of drawing attention to himself or making himself the topic of conversation. I, on the other hand, was irritated that I didn't know very much about him and that he didn't just, unprompted, broadcast all his stories to us. How simple it would have been to ask him some questions rather that sitting there waiting for him to open up.

I'm not bringing this up for the purpose of beating myself up, I have something else in mind. Do you have anyone in your life who is quiet by nature? Someone who is humble and not at all likely to make the conversation all about them? When you talk to them, is the conversation usually about you? Or do you ask them questions too?

I wonder how many people out there would be open books, if someone would just ask.

I'm paying more attention now, to see who's waiting for me to ask them a question about themselves. I'm not advocating an interrogation, but a genuine interest combined with a couple questions could make a big difference.



Tune in tomorrow and I'll treat you to Dad's poem "Don't Step on My Catheter!"
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Don't piss me off

This is my dad with my four brothers.

Shortly after we got engaged, a friend of ours saw this picture, turned to Mr. H and said, "What ever you do, don't piss her off."

He's done a fine job of heeding that advice.

This post is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta





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5 Things I Learned From My Dad

It's Father's Day. I had been holding out hope that I'd be pregnant by now so I could shower Father's Day attention on Mr. H, the father-to-be. Well, that hasn't quite worked yet. Maybe next year.

My father passed away in October, so today, I'm facing my first fatherless Father's Day.

I've had a hard time figuring out what to write; there is so much that I'm just not quite ready to talk about yet. I decided to come up with a list of things that I learned from my Dad.

1. Be creative. Improvise. Dad could fix anything with duct tape, although that's not the only thing he used. He never let the lack of the proper tool slow him down; not having the proper tool is just an excuse. Sometimes he would invent a tool on the spot to do what he needed. And come Halloween, if he didn't have a good pumpkin, he might just go with a turnip from the garden.




2. Tell your stories. Family stories are a gift. They help you understand what made your parents the way they are, what made you the way you are. They are the structure that defines the culture of your family. The paragraph below was excerpted from a 30 page autobiography Dad left for us before he died. It paints a picture of family life in 1950s Los Angeles, it also paints a picture of my grandfather, whom I never really got to know but was so instrumental in shaping my father into the man he was to become.

"One of my favorite memories of this time was Wednesday nights. That was payday and Dad would bring home a big load of groceries. He was a deputy for the L.A. County Sheriff and drove a blue 1948 Buick. I remember French bread and celery and we usually had spaghetti because that was Dad's favorite dish. He would also like to have some red wine with his spaghetti. He would take his first glass and take a sip. He would screw up his face like it tasted worse than castor oil, vinegar, and turpentine all mixed together and as he unscrewed his face he'd say, "Man, that's good!" About this time he told me he wanted me to sit on his left. He explained (kidding, of course) that it was so he could "come across with this one" making a fist. Mom sat on his right so he could pat her on the shoulder so she would know he had just said something funny and (perhaps apologizing for being so corny) it was time to laugh. It was at this age, perhaps, that I began to appreciate how much my Dad loved my Mom."

3. Read bedtime stories to your children. In my earliest years, Dad was a full time college student working two part time jobs. Mom would adjust our bedtime to fit his work schedule and he would come home between shifts to read us a bedtime story and tuck us in. Bed time stories were a sacred tradition in our home. My parents had five kids and we would all pile up on someone's bed every night for the bedtime story. He didn't just read Dr. Seuss (although there was plenty of that, and Richard Scary, and "Where the Wild Things Are"). As we got older he moved on to the classics like Heidi, The Swiss Family Robinson, Kidnapped, Treasure Island... We learned to love reading and stories. I learned to read by watching him read and following his finger as it dragged across the page. And every night we had that bonding time.

4. Be Happy. Dad used that phrase a lot. He would often sign off on his letters saying "be happy." He taught us, and modeled for us, that happiness is a choice and not an accident of circumstance. Choose happiness. Have fun. Laugh. Joke. Be Silly.

Defrosting the freezer can be a chore (remember when we had to do that?) or it can be a blast. The choice is yours.



5. Send Letters. It didn't matter if it was Toledo, New Orleans, or another city in our state, whenever Dad went somewhere on a business trip he sent us postcards. Not one card for all of us; each of us got our own postcard. It wasn't a big expense, and it didn't take a lot of time, but the payoff for us kids feeling loved and appreciated and remembered and valued - well, you can't put a price on that. He wrote letters too. Whenever Mom would put together a care package for one of us, Dad would pack it up and include a note. It usually wasn't very long, a few paragraphs, but I always read the note before I looked to see what else was in the box. Don't underestimate the value of these letters. They meant enough to me that I still have a box in which I keep all the postcards and letters from Dad. And don't confuse letters with emails. There's something about the handwriting that makes it more personal and more meaningful.

This is the last and most precious letter I received from my Dad right after he died.
(click to enlarge)


I miss you Dad.

Happy Fathers' Day.




Find more great Fathers' Day Posts at Discovering Dad.
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This Post Has Been Brought to You by the Number Four

When my niece was nearly four I decided to put together a little book for her birthday. A book about the number 4. I went around taking pictures of things in groups of four: four bananas, four ducklings, four boats, four flowers... And then I contacted my family members and asked them to get in on the game and submit pictures of themselves posing with four of their favorite things or in some other way representing the number four.

My Dad decided to go with "Grandpa Has Four Hands."




And then it turned into "Dr. Evil Has Four Hands."




Spare hands provided by my baby brother Steve.


My niece just turned six, and I still haven't finished the book. Not that I would procrastinate or anything...


This post is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta.

"Enough with the lips moving and the sound coming out"

Or, what my husband said to his mother-in-law.

Before you gasp in horror (or secretly cheer) they were just joking around. It made me gasp, but for a different reason. That was just the sort of thing my dad would say. I could see him sitting there with a full on belly laugh, his feet sticking straight out in front of him (he always stuck his feet straight out when he belly laughed), if he heard my husband say that. He would have loved that line, and he would have filed it away in the back of his brain for future reference looking for a really good opportunity to whip it out and use it.

I miss my dad, but I'm struck by how similar he was to my husband.

What about you? Do you find similarities between your significant other and one of your parents?

Shooting Dad

In the few short months between my trip to Alaska for a family reunion in August and my trip to Alaska for my father's funeral in October, I read Sarah Vowell's book Take the Cannoli. The book had been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year before I finally picked it up and started to read.


The first essay in the book was called "Shooting Dad," a coming of age story of sorts: a progressive minded young woman grew up in the middle of nowhere in a house full of republican gun fanatics, yet finds her way home to a reconciliation with her father during an outing that involves his cannon. Hmmm, could be the story of my life.



My dad was famous around town as the guy with the Moose Gooser - A cannon that he kept at the house and packed up to take to every home game and most away games of the Palmer High School football team, the Palmer Moose. He was obsessive about that cannon and spent hours loading the shells by hand before each game.

I went to one game with him to watch him fire the cannon. That was this August and it was his last game. I read Sarah Vowell's essay a month later and it was exactly what I needed to hear. No matter how extreme our political differences, he's still my dad. And I love him - and I miss him.

I found a version of the essay that Vowell had read on NPR. To hear the essay, select the link below. Vowell's essay on her relationship with her father starts at 4:30 (just fast forward right on through the first four and a half minutes) and lasts for about ten minutes.

The story is as funny as it is touching and well worth the time to listen to it.

shooting dad

the C-word

Two weeks ago my dad went in to surgery to remove his spleen because of a blood clot. when they got in there they saw that he had pancreatic cancer that had spread throughout his abdomen. they just closed him back up without even taking the spleen. they told us he has 3 months to live. Since then they've told us he could have as much as two years. two years never sounded so good. I dont know how to deal with this.

Pop

I am so lucky.

Happy Fathers' Day Pop

Bebe's Book; progress

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had come up with (what I think is) a brilliant idea for Bebe's birthday - a book celebrating Bebe and the number four.

So I've been calling around to get people to submit photos for this project. My dad apparently had a great deal of fun coming up with somthing to submit for the book - he submitted the following:

For this picture, the caption will say:
"Grandpa has four hands."






His next submission for the project was this:



I still haven't figured out what the caption will be...

Any suggestions?



How scary is that orange wall?

What's in Your Backyard?

My dad just emailed me with a picture of the moose in their backyard.

A new look at Pop

popandbride
Originally uploaded by coffeejitters.

My new boss saw this picture of Pop and me on my desk and said "Hey, how did you get Larry 'Bud' Melman to walk you down the aisle?"

Made me take a whole new look at my dad
- and Bud Melman.

Although, I've got to admit, I think my dad is a whole lot better looking.

Categories: parents, Pop

36 years together

I got to talk to Dad today - he's back in the hospital again, but seems to be in good spirits. He joked about seeing if his wife would let him off the hook for going out to dinner tonight - which is when it dawned on me that today is their 36th wedding anniversary.

36 years - I think she'll let him get away with it this time...




This picture says - 'what have I gotten myself into?'

Better Off Dead

This past weekend I discovered that Mr. H had never seen the movie "Better off Dead." This cult classic that most people of my generation (sub generation - should probably narrow it down to an ~8 year time span) can quote along with each line.

Suddenly I'm questioning all those times he nodded along with me as I spouted off some quote from the movie that had relevance to our life - an education was in order if he was to really get what I was getting at.

I went to my film archives (what a geek) to dig out the VHS tape, but didn't find it until after we broke down and rented a copy.

How did he like it? Hmmm, he laughed at the appropriate places but I don't think it will ever hold the same significance for him as it did for me.

A couple of months before the wedding my youngest brother, Steve, and my Dad had to sit him down and introduce him to The Blues Brothers.

his education continues...