Paul's Heart

Life As A Dad, And A Survivor

Archive for the category “Education”

07 Jun 2014

Post #300


I am never going to produce a major blockbuster movie like “300”. Nor will I ever have an opportunity to hit 300 homeruns. In fact the closest I have ever come to achieving 300 of anything would have been a perfect game in bowling back in my late 20’s. I threw strikes in the first nine frames, and then tapped a ten-pin, spared it, then completed the game with another strike in the 11th frame.

With my blog, I am finally achieving a 300, my 300th post on “Paul’s Heart.” My posts are at over 8000 views and the comments of support and appreciation are numerous. This is a big deal for me, but pales in comparison into the week ahead that I am going to have.

Next weekend, Father’s Day weekend, I will be memorializing my father who passed away three weeks ago. After discussing it with my siblings, we felt it was an appropriate tribute to our father. Just as many who have gone through such a personal loss, I am sure that you can understand the struggle to deal with “the first Father’s Day without my father.”

At the same time, it is Father’s Day weekend, something that I have always looked forward to since before I adopted my daughters. Besides the emotional toll of my father’s memorial to deal with, this will be the first Father’s Day for me with just my daughters. Due to the recent custody agreement I made with their mother, and my father’s passing, I have not been able to see them in a long time, the longest time apart.

I speak to my daughters every day, and on a couple of occasions I have been able to see my daughters courtesy of Facetime. I will get to spend the entire weekend with them, and I have a lot of activities planned with them. But next weekend will not be just about me. Every day I have thought about the hurt and confusion that my daughters must have. Which is why I will pull out all the stops to show them next weekend that the divorce does not change who their mother is, or who their father is. It is important to me to make sure that my children do not blame themselves for the divorce, that the divorce was an issue between just their mother and I.

The girls get to do a lot of fun things with their mother, and next weekend, I cannot wait to spend time with them.

My story is not unique, as there are probably thousands of other dads who have a similar story heading into next weekend. My parents divorced when I was young. So I have the perspective from both child and parent.

Next weekend is not about quantity, but rather the quality of the time that I get with my daughters.

Posted in Adoption, Animals, Bullying, Cancer, Education, Family and Friends, Food, Inspired By..., Politics, Recreation, Side Effects, The Heart, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
06 Jun 2014
3 Comments

You Didn’t Just Say That


Back when I decided to adopt my daughters, part of the process involved being educated in how to deal with becoming an interracial family. My daughters were going to be Chinese, and with the exception of having my eyes, clearly they were going to look different than me.

That difference is almost certain to bring out comments from people who do not understand just how potentially hurtful their words can be. You can call it ignorance, perhaps even bigotry. I would just call the comments and questions unnecessary. After all, no one ever asks a family with biological children “so where is your child from?” or of the siblings, “are they siblings?”

But that is exactly what happens, and I cannot vouch for when the children are adopted by the same ethnic parents, but when the family is going to be mixed ethnicity, white/African American/Chinese/Latino, for some reason, people need to know.

So it is not unusual for me to hear at least a half a dozen times when I am in public with my daughters, I will hear, “Are they sisters?” to which I always reply “yes.” Because they are. That is all they need to know. My daughters know that they have different birth mothers and fathers, but have the same adoptive mother and father. Another question that I usually give a smartass response to is, “where are they from?” I can give only a smartass answer because when you see my daughters you can see that they are Asian. But I give the answer, “from Lansdale.” But then that gets followed up with, “no, I mean what country are they from?” which my reply the United States. No, I do not have to play this game, but I have grown tired of it after all these years. Their mother and I, while knowing that are daughters were adopted from China, simply look at our daughters as just that, our daughters. We recognize and celebrate their Chinese heritage regularly. But to us, our daughters are no different than if they were our birth children.

But the worst possible comment that I heard actually came from a co-worker, a comment that while I knew the person was capable of saying bigoted or self-righteous comments, all in the name of Christianity, I never saw this comment coming.

The conversation started in the breakroom during my lunch period. My co-worker said to me, “you know, I don’t really approve of what you are doing,” making reference to the adoption of my first daughter (I never gave him a chance to make another comment like you will see in a few moments). I looked at him, knowing his personality, that his opinion was going to be in the line of “being unable to have kids, maybe I was not meant to have kids as God had planned”, his God, not mine. I have heard this said be some before. And perhaps I could have accepted his comment without any reaction from me if that had been his comment. But for whatever reason, I allowed the conversation to continue like I was trying to educate the ignoramus.

“Why, what do you mean?” I asked like I needed his approval.

“Well, I just don’t think it’s right. We send all of work over to China. We sell nothing but Chinese made products here. And you are bringing the Chinese here making it worse.”

It is not often to make me speechless, but this asshole did it. I stood up, pushed my chair in and walked away. I never entertained any other personal conversation with him ever again. I never, ever thought I would hear that comment from him. I understand the rhetoric by uneducated people who feel the blame for all the ills on our economic relationship with China, but the children of China are not. My daughters are US citizens and when of age will pay taxes unlike many US corporations. But when I heard that comment come from him, I could recall that I never once heard him complain about that last fact, only that I was bringing the Chinese to the country, under the guise of creating a family for me, to take over the US economy.

There are many other stupid things that I have heard, and many families I know who have heard worse.

When you see me with my daughters, if you feel the need to offer a comment, and though I am biased, I do expect to hear how beautiful they are, but I do not want to be asked where they are from or if they are sisters. Trust me, I like to talk. And if I feel it is appropriate, I will bring up that fact.

Posted in Adoption, Education, Family and Friends
05 Jun 2014

Handicapped… Or Handicapable


Three months following my open heart surgery, caused by damage from radiation therapy for my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma decades ago, I took the family to the New Jersey shore for a weekend getaway as part of my recovery before returning back to work. We were going to take our children to the amusement pier for the evening. My daughters are fond of carousels. In fact, I have photos of my daughters on every carousel they have ever ridden. With both girls under the age of five, both their mother and I rode with them.

As we approached the entrance gate to the ride, there was the measuring stick for children who rode solo without their parents to make sure they were tall enough and next to that was a white placard. On the placard was a huge red circle with a heart shaped symbol and a big line drawn through it.

In my younger days, I operated rides in our local amusement park, so the “heart condition” sign should not have been a shock to me. I know the adrenaline rush that occurs with a ride, so I was not anticipating riding on any kind of thrill ride. I was prepared for that. But this was a carousel, the tamest of rides.

Now I know the likelihood of any cardiac event taking place on a carousel, but seeing the cardiac warning sign hit me like a slap to the face. My heart sank. Was it possible that I was never going to get to do one of the things that I truly enjoyed in life, riding amusement rides with my daughters?

Six years later, unless you happen to catch me with my shirt off, which does not happen often in public, to look at me, you will never notice anything wrong with me just by looking at me. I do a very good job at hiding the late side effects that I deal with, so good, that even my doctors get fooled that I have actually been diagnosed with cardiac disease, pulmonary disease, muscular-skeletal issues, immunity issues. But they will all confirm, those diagnosis do exist. So seeing over a dozen specialist at one of the top hospitals in the country, Memorial Sloan Kettering, I have a label that is buried deep inside my conscience. I am disabled, handicapped, like it or not.

My doctors agree that I do not appear the typical Hodgkin’s survivor. From the day of my cancer diagnosis to today, I have never thought of myself anything less than a fully functional human being. True, I may not have the strength, ability, agility, flexibility, that I once had, that the average healthy person may have, but I am still fully functional. I do not consider myself handicapped, I will not even use the word. But I am learning to accept the word “handicapable.” With restrictions, dictated by my doctors, I am a fully functional human being.

I do have a handicap parking placard for my car, but it rarely is used except in situation of extreme heat and humidity (difficult for breathing) or if I happen to be carrying something heavy. Other than that, you will never see me use it. As an employee, I put in an eight hour day taking the same breaks as others who have nothing wrong with them. The truth is, I do not know if anyone else is dealing with any health issue, just as with my appearance, most have no idea about me.

I remain a good employee, committed to my efforts in any task that I take on. Unfortunately, to the dismay of my doctors and loved ones, I am too hard on myself to allow anyone to help me with physical challenges. As a cancer survivor, especially one dealing with late effects like me, we carry enough on our consciences without having the burden placed on us, that we feel we have to rely on others for assistance. At least that is how I feel.

Unfortunately, my body does not show that mercy to me. If I do happen to push too hard, it has a very rude way of letting me know that I have done too much, like when I had to have my open heart surgery, or two battles with septic and double pneumonia. I have learned more to listen to my body. Sure, sometimes my coworkers do not like that, some may even feel that I do not do my share. But I would challenge anyone to wear my size 9 1/2 shoes for just one day.

I do not look for pity. I have given up looking for understanding. But I do know the difference. I am not handicapped. I am handicapable.

Posted in Cancer, Education, Inspired By..., Side Effects, The Heart | Leave a comment

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