Paul's Heart

I Won’t Be Home For Christmas

For the first time in forty eight years, I will not be in my home for Christmas. I will not be putting out the neighborhood traditional luminaries on Christmas Eve. I will not be putting on the Santa hat, going through the house with a sack of toys to put under the Christmas tree, while I am being videotaped so that my daughters still see that Santa exists. I will not be going to Christmas Eve church with my daughters. In fact, I will not even be seeing them Christmas Eve or most of Christmas Day. Such as the life of a father in the middle of divorce with children. I knew this day would someday come.

In the grand scheme of things, overall, I am lucky. There are millions of people who face a different Christmas with much more heartbreak, and not by choice.

Our brave service men and women who are deployed away from their families at best if they are lucky might be able to see electronic video messages to wish each other Merry Christmas. Our emergency responders, police, fire departments, ambulance workers, and hospital workers will all spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day away from their families because that is what they do.

Then there are the families who are displaced away from their homes for any number of reasons. Especially those who sit in a hospital waiting room, anxiously waiting for positive news from the surgeon, that everything went the way it was supposed to, but it would still be several days before anything was certain. And then, there are those who will get sad news.

I am away from my daughters during “the most wonderful time of the year.” I know my daughters are having a great time with their friends and cousins doing all kinds of Christmasy things. And they will be happy to see me Christmas night, of course because I will have their presents. Until then, I am spending time with loved ones. While this is not a time that I ever thought I would see when I became a father, that time is here. And I will create new traditions for and with my daughters. I am lucky because I have that chance. There are so many however, whose holidays hang in the balance while they await news or fate.

This is a wonderful time of year. But for those who must be away from their homes, please keep them in your hearts. Especially a young friend of mine and his family. It is now over two months since he fell seriously ill. Today he is still in intensive care while his family is by his side waiting for the best Christmas gift they could ever receive. And that is how they will all spend their holiday. Please keep them, and everyone else going through difficult times in your hearts and minds, and whether you say prayers or might just offer a moment of thought, to send a positive hope to all during this time of year.

My Most Memorable Birthdays

Today I turned 48 years old. I do not think I look it, or at least when I am clean shaven. There is not much gray on top of my full head of hair. And any gray that I do have, or “snow” as a co-worker is fond of calling it, is on my chin. While many choose to tell me that my goatee (when I grow it) makes me look sophisticated, my oldest daughter chooses to be more honest, “the gray makes you look old.”

Forty-eight birthdays. I know I have lived that long, though I do not remember many of my birthdays. But here are some that I do.

1976. I may not remember how old I was turning without doing the math, but I do remember the year, because it was the year of the Bicentennial. It was a Thursday night. My family was gathered around the kitchen table. We had just finished eating my annually requested birthday feast, tuna noodle casserole, and of course was waiting the obvious desert, my birthday cake. My aunt had disappeared to light the candles on the side porch off to the side of the dining room. Out went the lights and the chorus of Happy Birthday began. Just as the song completed, in walked my uncle to feast on any leftovers before he went to his weekly bowling night. But he was a little more excited than usual. “Fire!!” he yelled. My grandmother turned and looked at him and said, “of course, there’s lots of fire” pointing to the lit candles on my birthday cupcakes. He yelled as he ran into the dining room, “No… FIRE!! on the side porch!!!”

It turned out that my aunt when lighting the candles, was using the old wooden matches, and a spark from the match hit a stack of newspapers just to the side of my birthday treat. The fire was put out in a matter of minutes, though the smell lingered, and the memory remains.

1988. Less than a month before my 23rd birthday, I was diagnosed with cancer, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. My initial thoughts were that I would be lucky to see my next birthday, let alone twenty-five more. Between the months of December and January, the only thing on my calendar that got attention was not my birthday, but the numerous tests that had been scheduled to stage my cancer, which would eventually lead to treatments.

2000. The Seattle Seahawks versus the Oakland Raiders. At least I think they were Oakland then, could have been Los Angeles yet, who cares? My one birthday wish was to see this awesome rivalry be played in the most difficult building for any visiting team to play football in, the Seattle Kingdome (which has long since been demolished). But the crowd noise inside during a game, regardless how bad the team had done each season, was an impossible place for visiting teams to play their most disciplined football. This particular season was pretty much typical, a losing season. And the game pretty much went status quo, all Raiders through three quarters. The weather was horrendous, raw wind driven rain in the open Washington Husky stadium. The Seahawks had been down by more than three scores and in the fourth quarter not only mounted a comeback, actually tied the game, sending it into overtime where the Seahawks would eventually upset the visiting Raiders with a field goal. I have no idea how the knuckleheads in Buffalo and Denver sit in the stands with no shirts in the middle of the playoffs when in the middle of December, fully clothed but soaked in a chilly rain, I WAS COLD!!

2013. This birthday is one that I truly want to forget. I have a dear friend fighting for his life in intensive care the week before Christmas. Over the last week, my employer continues to lay people off, just before Christmas. And though I will not discuss details, and though I have been divorced before, it is with this second divorce that I have children involved. This holiday season is difficult enough, but when I woke this morning, I knew there would be no presents for me from my daughters and there would be no birthday cake which I am well beyond needing anyway. But unfortunately, my daughters are not old enough to remember dates other than Easter, Halloween, Christmas, and the last day of school so no one gave them any reminder what today was. Still it was a memorable night as I attended my oldest daughter’s first Christmas choral concert, beginning what I hope will be the fourth generation of Edelman vocalists. 2013 is ending up to be one year that I definitely want to forget my birthday ever happened, but will go down rather as one I will never forget.

I do want to thank everyone though who has sent me emails and FB posts wishing me a Happy Birthday. It means a lot to me.

2014 has to be better.

Happy Thanksgiving

I will be the first to express that I do not get excited about the approaching holidays.  It is not that I am some sort of Scrooge.  But rather, I have had to deal with so many unfortunate circumstances around this time of year, I am almost fearful of what the holidays will bring.  In December of 1976, while celebrating my birthday, the house I grew up in suffered damage from fire.  Several years later, on a Friday the 13th in November, my mother and stepfather were in a car accident.  In November of 1988, I was diagnosed with cancer, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma just days before Thanksgiving.  In the mid-90’s my first ex-wife’s father was mis-diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, an error that cost him four years of his life, all due to a medicinal error.  My stepmother was hit by a car crossing her street just days before Christmas.  And even recently, I am facing another issue, not health related for once.  You get the idea why I am not fond of this season?

But I have a wonderful Thanksgiving story to share.  In my decades of counseling cancer patients and survivors, no Thanksgiving could ever be as more meaningful as one family is about to celebrate.  Just over a month ago, this day may never have come for one cancer survivor.  Just barely finishing chemo, this young man suffered a near fatal side effect from the one chemotherapy drug, combined with another physiological issue.  What began as a simple and seemingly harmless cough, would worsen to the point that instead of waiting to go to the soonest doctor appointment four days later, a decision was made by one concerned mother, to take her young adult son to the emergency room.  The next six hours would turn into a nightmare as she would hear the words “code blue.”  The doctors were able to rescucitate him, but the news this mother would recieve would not be much better.  Her son’s condition was getting worse.  And as if it could not get any worse, the hospital was not equipped to handle such an emergency to the skill needed for this particular case.

He would have to be medivaced to the nearest facility that had the best chance to treat his condition.  This was a great distance away from home, which meant that they family had to travel, leaving their home behind for an unknown period of time, until they all could come home together.  Emergency surgery would be needed totalling nearly fourteen hours just for the one procedure itself, and several minor surgeries to make adjustments to his medical condition.  But that night of the surgery was no breeze either.  The following forty-eight hours would be the most important.

He is going to need long term care at home, something that is normally done by skilled and trained doctors and nurses, now to be done by his mother, and anyone else who may be trained.  I am certain this is not what the mother had dreamed of becoming when she gave birth to him.  But I am also certain that she is glad to have this chance to take care of him.

A month later, this story appears to be having a happy ending.  As I write this blog, this young man and his family, especially his mother are happy, nervous, and excited to be heading back home.  It will be a long ride home, as this time there is no helicopter transporting him.  I have taken that long ride home from a hospital myself, following my heart surgery.  A lot goes through your mind during that drive.  Gratitude is one of them.

No matter what I have gone through, I have two beautiful and wonderful daughters.  And I actually do welcome these holidays, not for me, but for them.  My ten year old still believes in Santa.  As our home deals with another seasonal struggle, I keep in mind the anticipation and excitement that my children have for these holidays.  But even more so, I will remember this Thanksgiving holiday as one family prepares to be thankful for the greatest gift of all, the life of someone so young, a true fighter and survivor.  If there were ever a definition of a miracle, you are reading about it right here.

No matter what holiday you celebrate during the upcoming season, my wish is that it be happy, safe, and healthy.  And to my young friend and his family… Happy Thanksgiving.  And Happy Thanksgiving to you all.