Called Home

My father died from cancer almost two years ago. I miss him. I miss the few times that we spent together as adults. What I miss the most are the times that we will never have because we were both busy getting on with life when we thought we had all the time in the world. As I was growing up my father was too busy supporting a growing family to spend much of what is now referred to as “quality time." I remember him working for a local construction company as well as running our small family farm with my grandfather.

I was stationed on Okinawa Japan when cancer invaded my life almost three years ago. My mother called mid-morning on a Saturday. Instead of her usual banter about grandchildren and life back home, she stammered out the short statement “Your father has something to tell you.” Because of his hearing loss Dad rarely talked on the phone so I prepared myself for something significant, but not his short statement “I've got a cancer.” Nothing can ever prepare you for the possibility of hearing that news. I sat in disbelief as Dad tried to soothe my rattled nerves and assure me that I didn’t need to come home. At once I felt fear and guilt --Fear at losing my father and guilt about missing so much of my family.

My wife and I were quickly flown stateside on emergency leave and twenty-four hours later I was walking through the kitchen door of the house where I lived as a child. My parents were both a little grayer and my father somehow a little smaller than the terrible (at times) giant of my youth – over the years he had become just a man. He was afraid of his surgery the following day, but happy for today as his whole family was home. The following three weeks were a blur of doctors, discussions, visits and of course family arguments. The doctors had been quite pleased with the results of the operation and felt that they had removed all of the cancer. All too soon we returned to Okinawa filled with hopes that there would be a complete recovery. After all, it was 1993 and didn’t we hear about miracle recoveries from cancer every day in the news?

The next six months passed with the usual phone calls and letters. “Dad was doing fine...”

I wanted to believe that no news was good news, but that just wasn’t the case. My family had been trying to protect me by not informing me of the vicious course the cancer had taken: A tumor had been discovered in Dad’s brain. Luckily it had been operable and he was soon in recovery. A growth on his right hand was removed, but it soon reappeared. Slowly came the realization that to save the body the hand had to be removed. Following innumerable trips to the hospital, the doctors advised my parents that there was little else that could be done. My father should return home to live out the rest of his life with dignity.

In January 1994 I received a phone call from my brother. His message was as blunt as my father’s had been almost a year before, “If you want to see Dad, you had better get home as soon as you can.”

We had just started our fifth year overseas. Sandra and I were comfortable in our island home. I knew that we couldn’t just go home for a couple of weeks and then return to Okinawa, there was too much to be said and done. I would have to trust the Army’s support system in which I had little faith. All the plans my wife and I had lain out for our last year on Okinawa were immediately canceled because we had to go home. The following day I started the process by requesting a tour curtailment and what is known as a “compassionate reassignment,” a rather simple way of saying “we take care of our own.”. As soon as I mentioned why we had to go home RIGHT NOW, red tape was quickly cut, procedures modified and in some instances paperwork was even “created” to help us on our way. Soldiers I had never met before approached me offering help in any way they could - I had never felt so good about being in the Army as I did in those hectic days. Within three weeks the system that I had mistrusted so much got us home.

I was afraid of what I was to find when I got home this time and braced myself for the worst as I walked through the door. I found my mother flitting frantically about the kitchen and as my father came into the room I saw that he moved slowly and methodically – more stooped and gray than the year before. I enveloped him in a bear hug and felt him stiffen, afraid that I would hurt him. I put my happiness in check to avoid injuring him and assisted him to his chair. As I sat there unwinding after the 24 hours I had spent in transit I could not help wondering why this had to happen. Of anyone I knew Bob Woods was tough enough and ornery enough to beat cancer. Why was God being so cruel to allow Dad to be crippled and to end his life so slowly? My father could build anything, could fix anything, it just was not fair to make him suffer so much.

Over the next six weeks Dad’s fragile health began to fail, slowly at first but he was in a steady decline that seemed to increase with every passing hour. Embarrassed as he was, he finally allowed me to help him with his daily ablutions. Always a fastidious man, he showered and shaved daily despite the pain. Although I was at first uncomfortable helping him bathe and dress, I felt somehow privileged to be able to assist him and tried to ensure he maintained his dignity despite his infirmity. Dad grew steadily worse; the pain increasing with each passing day, the morphine only kept him semi-comfortable as he slipped in and out of consciousness. It was decided that he be given last rites. The parish priest quickly arrived and absolved my father of sin preparing him to leave this world as the family stood helplessly around his bed. That night my father slipped away in his sleep, no longer in pain and finally at peace. In the ensuing days as we prepared for his funeral, it occurred to me that his life had made a complete circle, he had died in the same room he had been born on the farm that he loved so much. He had not been a man of great means, but he had been a very rich man.

I guess God needed a good farmer in heaven.

Some People's Kids

It is amazing just how much teenage boys can waste time that they can ill afford to lose. We have been in class for over 20 minutes and they have yet to do any work, mostly they have just sat there gabbing with each other and picking at things on/in their bodies. Major "ewwww" factor here.

Anyway, I wish I could convey to them that pissing away HS is a terrible thing - I look back at my time now as a total waste, in part because of the lame classes I took but also because of my desire for immediate gratification. eg: not doing classwork because it was more fun to BS.

"Huh, you know I can get an A+ in geometry and still fail this class."

"Dems crazy laak fo o' fie mufugas"

"I can't find my sheet so I can't do this work, so I figured I would just read this book."

"I'd rather live than learn."

"I'll just google it tonight."

"I can't imagine a world without shopping...."

"Why can't I listen to my Ipod during the test?"

"Can I take this call? It's long distance!"

These are just some of the things I've heard since I began substitute teaching. Here's one that I heard second hand and it's just TOO good not to post. Let me set the stage first, the assistant principal is dealing with a chronically tardy, absent and confrontational girl. She is being very antagonistic and after the AP asks/says something she didn't like she stormed at him, "You can just suck my imaginary man cock!"

Okay, how can you respond to something like this? OMG what a little shit! With language skills and imagination like that I foresee a future in the adult entertainment industry for this little girl, not necessarily a bright future, maybe as an extra in a group grope!

Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

All the World is a stage

Oh boy, if the current TV lineup is any example the whole world really is a stage. "Reality" shows abound I keep wondering just where it will all end but I don't think we've seen the last of them for a long, long time. I try to limit my TV time throughout the week, but sometimes it seems that that is the only activity that I have time for. Yeah, yeah, I know - an excuse nothing more.

As you may have noticed, the current trend is addictions and the kicking thereof. OMG, there is a major ick factor with this genre. Although the extent of my exposure to this "entertainment" is limited to their repetitive commercials. I can't help but wonder why anyone would watch this stuff. Of course, I think the same thing about DWTS and the Kardashians, whoever the hell they are!

When I was in college - not so long ago, I used to have a sinful indulgence of watching Entertainment Weekly before I started on homework. Since I didn't have cable that was only one of a handful of channels my old rabbit ears could pick up. Nonetheless, as classes got harder my TV time became more restricted until the only thing I used the TV for was the news, an occasional video and for someplace to set my beer.

Now that I have cable I've discovered that I still only watch a handful of TV shows and most of those are on the traditional networks. I used to watch the History channel religiously, but lately I rarely watch it due to its migration into the sensational "reality" shows with axe men, ice road truckers, ghost, and monster hunters filling the lineup, it seems history has become history on the history channel - big sigh for us history geeks....

Yes, I do watch the weather channel, something that I would never dream of doing in my younger days, can't get by without my "local on the eights".

Well, the bell just rang so it's back to teachering.

Woody

Readers Bill of Rights

I recently stumbled upon the bill of rights as applied to reading, created by French writer Daniel Pennac the following "Reader's Bill of Rights" are a great way to express how I feel about reading - and by extension, writing.

1. The right to not read
2. The right to skip pages
3. The right to not finish
4. The right to reread
5. The right to read anything
6. The right to escapism
7. The right to read anywhere
8. The right to browse
9. The right to read out loud
10. The right to not defend your tastes