The Comet

I have just ended a most unforgettable week. A week that brought about a hurricane of emotions and experiences. A week I just assume to wake up tomorrow morning and discover never existed at all, except in my dreams.  During this week, I have tasted the injustice of a premature death.  It is incredibly bitter.  I have experienced the loss of a loved one, and while I know it’s inevitable, I just assume not ever experience it again.  I have been lifted up by the hands of hope and faith, and while they both remain, I am still faced with an outcome that seems most undesirable.  I have known what it is to weep with those who can do nothing but weep.  And while I hope that was a comfort to those who most needed it, it’s not the kind of comfort I want to be in the habit of giving.  I have witnessed my children losing someone dear and have not had the capacity to sufficiently answer their questions or deal with their grief.  This concerns me deeply as a father.  I have known exhaustion of an unfamiliar kind – the kind that comes from serving others over an extended period of time in their moment of need – and while I could not envision a situation where I wouldn’t step in and do the same all over again, I hated that the need was so dire.  I also learned what it’s like to swallow your emotions and pretend to be strong, only to have them resurface in moments of quiet retreat.  I have also tasted the sweetness of worship in the midst of sorrow.  It’s as refreshing as any cold spring on a hot summer’s day.  Thanks to my sister and her amazing family, I know the grittiness of a faith that can truly say, “no matter what, Lord, I will still trust in You!”  Having witnessed such a rare sight, I am humbled.  I have heard those I love boldly pledge an allegiance and love for the Lamb of God that supersedes man’s natural desire to hold tightly to the things of this world.  By this I am encouraged and now see that the good news of Jesus Christ is an unquenchable fire that will one day consume the whole Earth.  I have seen a community respond to tragedy, crossing every racial, social and denominational line, and this makes me happy.  I have experienced the mystery of knowing someone, without fully knowing who they are until they have been taken away.  I have learned of the greatness of my nephew, whom I have loved dearly for 15 years, from those who recognized his true greatness in a much shorter period of time.  

This week, I saw the passing of a comet.  I have lived under its light for the past 15 years, and while I had every opportunity to bask in its glow, I only caught glimpses of it from time to time.  Now the comet is gone, and I am deeply troubled by its passing.  Nevertheless, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to see it – if only for a moment.  In my state of heightened sensitivity, I now suspect that I’m surrounded by comets.  This makes me want to recognize their beauty while their light is still with me.  God give me courage to live and love as freely as the one we’ve lost.

Getting There

My wife recently advised me to consider documenting some of the more significant moments of my life, so that our children will have a written account of their father's unusual existence.  And though her choice of the word 'unusual' caught me a little off guard, I'm sure that she was implying that my life is so very uniquely profound, it just wouldn't be fair to the rest of humanity to go unrecorded. Now when someone suggests that I ‘go ahead and do such and such to make sure it gets done before you die,’ I go into major procrastination mode.  Such reaction betrays my true conviction that by not planning for death, I will somehow delay its arrival and vice versa.  This time, however, I’ve decided to stare death in the face and make use of the time, abundant though I’m sure it to be.  So this next series of blogs is devoted to one of the most significant adventures of my life to date.

In my younger years, I was more adventurous than I am now.  Lately, it seems that if I catch a reprieve from work obligations, school board duties, church responsibilities and various family commitments, I am most likely to be found sitting on my couch hanging out with my children or watching TV.  I’m not sure if it’s my age or just a general feeling of fatigue, but lately, I’ve longed for few things more than a chance to lounge around on the couch.  This story, however, isn’t about my present condition, but rather a specific adventure I embarked upon as a young man.  It's the story of a 24 year old, single man who walked away from the security of a good job with a reputable company, as well as the comfort of life in the United States, and set out for Lausanne, Switzerland, for the purpose of becoming a missionary.   

I inherited a love for travel from my now deceased grandmother, who set foot in more countries than I could begin to count.  As a child, I was subjected to endless carousels of slides highlighting her journeys abroad, which forced me to become familiar with such faraway places as the Great Pyramids, Buckingham Palace and the Kremlin, to name a few.  And while I never fully appreciated the value of those low rez Kodaks projected in cruel fashion on the wall of my grandmother's den, I am no cognizant of the sacred exchange that took place during those moments.  My Nana was imparting to me a desire to experience the unfamiliar, and for that, I will forever be grateful.  It is this desire that propelled me into the strange and exciting world of foreign missions.  

I realize that the word 'missions' often evokes images of such places as Haiti, Nigeria or some other third world country.  Lausanne is hardly third world.  In fact, Switzerland is about as first world as they come.  But my quest to become a full-time missionary began with a 6 month Discipleship Training School (DTS) with an organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM).  The school, by design, combines Bible based lecture with practical application in a foreign missions environment. So I figured if I was going to 'rough it' in a missions setting for 3 months, the least God could do for me was to let me spend the lecture portion of my school in a cushy Alpine setting. 

I well remember the day that I was escorted to the airport by my mom and my sis, bound for Lausanne.  It was an emotional moment for all of us, but especially so for them.  I am the baby of the family - the youngest of 7, and it's always hard sending a baby off to Europe for 6 months.  My flight was on Delta, and I was flying ‘standby’ on an employee buddy pass.  I was most excited about this, simply for the fact that buddy's get to sit in the front of the plane, if available.  In the days leading up to the trip, I had prayed desperately for a first class seat.  I reasoned that I must be worthy of such a prayer given the fact that I was sacrificially giving up my life to become a missionary - at least for the next 6 months.  As I awaited the final boarding call, the gate agent summoned me to the counter and told me that there was, in fact, one first class seat available.  My mom put her arm around me my shoulder and with tears in her eyes said, "God must be smiling on you!"  It was a watershed moment.  I was touched at both my Mom's tenderness, as well as the Lord's obvious interest in my travel comfort.  I then said my good-byes and turned to walk tearfully down the jet-way.  

I soon found myself in another world – no, not Switzerland - that would come later.  I entered the world of first class travel.  I pinched myself when I saw my seat.  It was truly a thing of beauty with its plush leather finish and more than enough butt room for me and a guest.  The instant my posterior touched down on the soft cushion, a flight attendant arrived to take my drink order.  As the throngs of coach customers pushed and shoved their way back to the cheap seats, I confidently ordered a glass of champagne.  "Champagne?" I thought to myself, "Who orders champagne on an airplane?"  Then it hit me - first class passengers - that's who.  I was then hit with the reality of the moment.  I was jet-setting.  I was bound for Europe - young, single and soon to be sipping champagne.  My mom’s words “God is smiling on you” were echoing about in the hollow confines of my brain.  No one knows for sure where the geographical 'top of the world' is, but I'm pretty sure I was there for brief, shining moment in first class. 

I then struck up a conversation with my seat neighbor who was Swiss.  I know this not just because he was well dressed, well groomed, and slightly effeminate (in an obvious heterosexual way), but because he told me so.  I don’t know what it is about the Swiss, but they just seem to ooze a sense of importance.  As we spoke of such things as first class travel and 'those poor schmucks in coach,' I began to swell with a sense of importance.  I'm not sure if the sense of importance had more to do with the seat or the fact that a Swiss person was giving me the time of day.  After all, the Swiss are important, and they don't just talk to anyone.  “My days of God not smiling on me are definitely in the past,” I thought to myself, as I reveled in my newfound sense of significance. 

My champagne soon arrived.  I discretely watched my new Swiss friend and made a mental note of how he held his plastic, Delta airlines champagne glass.  I mimicked his every move, holding my wrist at an awkward angle with my little finger slightly dangling off the stem of the glass and began to enjoy the sweet, alcoholic nectar of my first class experience.  After a couple of sips, the flight attendant returned.  “I’m sorry sir,” she began, and I, being full of a sense of self-importance, expected her to apologize for not being able to serve my filet mignon until we were airborne.  “You’re going to have to change seats,” she said, hardly apologetic.  “It seems that the ‘no-show’ has just checked in at the gate and there are no more available seats in first class.  You’ll have to sit in the back.”

In one cruel nanosecond, my first class house of cards came tumbling down around me.  Just like that,  I had been exposed as a fraud and demoted back to coach.  My uppity Swiss friend cut his eyes at me and sneered as if to say, “you don’t belong here.”  After only a few short moments at the top, I was now banished to relative exile.  I stood and reached into the overhead bin for my carry-on.  Once securely in my possession, I then reached for my glass of champagne.  The flight attendant stopped me and said, “I’m sorry sir.  Those are for first class passengers only.”

I then marched to coach like a prisoner headed for the Gulag.  I was told there were plenty of seats in coach.  There were, only they were all at the back of the plane.  The very back... of a 747.  Practically everyone was seated but me, so the whole plane watched in wonder as I was booted out of first class and condemned to coach.  Feeling a bit like Rosa Parks – although a much less stubborn Rosa Parks at best – I heard my mom’s words in my head again, only this time they rang with a certain air of sarcasm, “God is smiling on you, God is smiling on you.”

I eventually settled into a seat about 5 rows from the back of the plane.  As I asked God if the smile had turned into a frown, I soon realized that there was no one within spitting distance of me.  I ended up with the entire center row to myself.  I stretched out and slept soundly most of the way to Switzerland, dreaming of the adventure that awaited me.  Turns out, God had a funny way of smiling on me that night.

At baggage claim, I saw my Swiss friend.  I tried to tell him that I had a very comfortable trip over.  He refused to make eye contact with me.

A Tense Encounter

My wife loves to lavish gifts on those she loves most.  And since I am, at the very least, in the running for the title “love of her life,” I often find myself as the beneficiary of her generosity.  My wife also takes great pleasure in her individuality, which spills over into her purchasing decisions with great frequency.  She’s been known to avoid trends and fads just for the sake of maintaining her individualistic integrity, even when doing so means going without something she would otherwise buy.  All this to say, when she buys you a gift, you can expect that it will be something you’re not expecting. 

Throughout our nearly 15 years of marriage, I’ve had regular bouts with both a stiff back and neck – a condition, it seems, that I picked up from years of sitting at a desk with my shoulders drooped to my knees and my head arched forward like a racehorse lunging for a finish line.  And while it’s not a very pleasant condition, to say the least, the remedy is actually quite a simple one, provided that I can find a willing accomplice.  A simple backrub, delivered with a little love and a firm grip, does the trick every time.  Early on in our marriage, I looked to my wife to provide such relief.  After all, she’s the most obvious choice, or at least it seemed at the time.  I naturally assumed that she possessed both the affection and the will to carry out the task of un-knotting my achy muscles.  I was wrong on both accounts.

It’s not that she doesn't possess the strength necessarily, it’s more, I believe, an issue of resolve.  My theory is that she sees no return on her investment of time and effort, given that 9 times out of 10, a good massage puts me to sleep within minutes.  Why rub on someone for a good 15 or 20 minutes only to put them to sleep and get nothing in return?  And while outright refusing my requests for a rubdown would demonstrate a severe lack of marital commitment, my wife maintains the illusion of caring by putting forth a minimal amount of effort when asked, giving the shortest and least effective massages known to man.  I once suggested that I’d be better off if she’d just place a half-dead fish on my back and let it flop about.  “At least I’ll have a fighting chance of some actual pressure being applied to my back for an acceptable duration of time,” I said sarcastically as I suddenly felt an enormous amount of unsolicited pressure all at once in the form of a slap to the back of my head.  Shortly thereafter, the massages ceased altogether, and we reached a comfortable medium.  I quit complaining about my back, and she quit pretending to care.  

And so, it was with great astonishment that I received a most unusual birthday gift from her, several years after the “dying fish” assault.  Several days prior to my special day, she announced, with no pretense of discretion, that I should plan to be home from 5 to 6 on my birthday, which translates into Christmas Eve Eve.  Not exactly sure of what she had up her sleeve, I questioned her until I had enough information to solve the riddle.  After several minutes of serious interrogation, I deduced that she had scheduled an appointment for me for an “at home massage”.  And while I very much appreciated the thought, this peculiar news was met with a great deal of skepticism.  I had no idea that masseuses made house calls, and the more I thought about it, the more I questioned the validity of the “massage” in question.  Fearing that my wife had misconstrued whatever advertisement that enticed her into this bizarre gift, I began to wonder what kind of services I would be getting and whether or not they were legal in the first place.  With my imagination running wild, I convinced myself that she had fallen prey to some horrible sting operation meant to catch solicitors of “at home massages”.  I pictured myself on an episode of Cops with my face blurred out being handcuffed and escorted to the backseat of a patrol car in nothing but my underwear on Christmas Eve Eve, of all days.  So I pressed for more information in a desperate attempt at avoiding a life of imprisonment.

I eventually discovered that I would, in fact, be getting a bona fide massage.  But in satisfying my curiosity, I opened up another can of worms.  Turns out that the masseuse, which I had naturally assumed was a woman, was actually a man.  And while that alone was enough to make me squirm, the real kicker came when I discovered that the man was someone I knew and went to church with.  And there it was.  I was not only scheduled to get a complete, one hour rub down from a man, I would have to see that man every week for Lord knows how long.  How would I ever be able to make eye contact with him again?  Suddenly seeing myself on Cops was not the most unpleasant scenario I could think of.  While wanting to sound grateful, I inquired as to the likelihood of getting a full refund.  “I’d really like to get something for you with that money instead,” I said as I grasped at the only straw I could find.  “That is what would truly make my birthday a happy one.”  She didn’t take the bait.

Sensing my apprehension, however, she quickly assured me that everything was going to be okay.  She told me there was nothing weird about the situation, and while I wanted to believe her, my imagination wouldn’t allow me that luxury.  Eventually, however, I acquiesced.  After all, she had truly done something selfless for me, and the least I could do is graciously accept – even if it challenged my manhood.

Christmas Eve Eve arrived after an unusually lengthy amount of time, and I had gradually grown tenser by the moment.  The hours I had spent thinking about the awkward present had knotted every ounce of muscle and tissue in my neck and back into a spindly mass of knotted chaos, and as the clocked ticked closer to 5 on that dreadful day, the pain became excruciating.  At 4 o’clock, my wife announced it was time for her to "start getting ready".  “Get ready for what?” I asked.  

“I’m going shopping so you’ll have a more relaxing experienced,” she said with no shred of humor in her voice.

I can’t remember my exact words, or even the tone with which they were spoken, but I’m pretty sure I used profanity.  I was desperate and meant not to be left alone in the house with a male masseuse, even if it was someone I went to church with.  Determined, my wife resisted.  I finally pulled out a trump card.  “But this is my birthday present isn’t it?  What I want for my birthday is to not be left alone with a dude in my house with a case full of his own rubbing oils.”  She laughed for the first time since informing me of the massage, and I sensed, rightly so, that this whole dilemma was giving her a great deal of pleasure.  Nevertheless, she agreed to stay – partially, I think, because she knows I would have left shortly after her, had she gone.   I further convinced her to promise me that she would remain within eyesight of me the whole night.

When the masseuse arrived, he greeted me kindly and I did my best to return the favor.  He then asked where to set up his folding table.  Fearing that he was looking for a more private locale, I quickly pointed to a spot right next to the front door.  “How ‘bout right here?” I said as I choked down my apprehension over the thought of what was to come.  My wife laughed out loud at her idiot husband.  As he set up the table, he spoke of church and people we both knew.  This only made things more bizarre.  Somehow, if you’re going to get a rubbing at the hands of a guy, you shouldn’t talk of the familiar.  In fact, you should probably just not speak at all.

I slowly warmed to the idea of the massage (and by “warm” I mean going from about 30 below to maybe 20 below) as he began to apply pressure to my neck.  After all, the back of my neck is, when it’s all said and done, the one place I would allow a guy to rub me, if it were entirely up to me.  The problem is, when you start with the place you least mind being touched, there’s nowhere to go from there except down – literally.  I soon discovered I had not been signed up for a back and neck only massage.  No sir, that would have been far too inconsiderate of my wife who, as I said earlier, loves to lavish her unusual gifts on me whether I want them or not.  Instead, she anteed up for a full body rub.  Several times during the session, the male masseuse commented on how unusually tense I was.  “Huh,” I would reply, “that’s unusual.  I don’t feel that tense.”  Each time, my wife laughed out loud.  She became hysterical when he started working on my legs and nearly busted a gut when I suggested he focus more on my neck and back.  “The real problem area is more towards my neck,” I said, feeling confident he would change directions if given the right information.  “Actually,” he said with authority, “you’d be surprised at how tension in one part of the body can cause pain in other parts.”  He continued working his way down my leg, and I started to see his point.  The tension of the entire scene was causing me an enormous amount of pain in my ego. 

When it was all over, my male massaging friend said good-bye and went on his jolly way, though I refused to look him in the eye when he wished me a Merry Christmas.  But once he was gone, I was the most relieved I had been in years.  I thanked my wife who, by this time, was fully aware of the misery she had inflicted upon me.  She repaid me by taking me to a movie.  As a side note, I didn’t enjoy the movie either – my neck and back were locked up from all the tension of getting a male massage.

The Day I Nearly Ruined and Then Saved Christmas

Christmas is almost here, and once again, I am visited by the ghost of Christmas past.  This year, he’s taken me to the year 2005, when I had just 2 kids and things were… well… a bit quieter around our suburban Phoenix home.  Isaac was 5 and Emily was 3, and while my eldest was dead-set on getting some sort of video game from Santa, Emily asked for a shiny new bicycle.

As these things are prone to happen, Mrs. Claus headed off to the store in search of the children’s prizes without a plan in place to ensure their arrival at our home having been pre-assembled.  Furthermore, Mrs. Claus didn’t tell Santa that it was his job to complete the assembly until the day before his anticipated arrival.  And while nobody truly knows the exact day of Santa’s birth, around our home, it’s common knowledge that the day before Christmas (also known as Benmas) is the birthday of Mr. Dismukes, who had been conscripted to fulfill the duties of the true Mr. Claus.  I had no desire to build anything on my birthday, let alone a bicycle.  So I spent the better part of my morning lamenting the fact that a completely unassembled bicycle awaited me in our garage.  But, as always, one look into the bright blue eyes of my then youngest daughter caused every reservation I had about the daunting task that lay before me to crumble like a stale biscuit.  After all, what kind of Santa would I be if let down this precious little girl.  So I made my way out to the garage and began the monumental task.

As I entered my workshop, I informed Mrs. Claus to keep the kids occupied lest they be tempted to meddle and discover the true identity of their favorite superhero.  I cursed under my breath as I tore open the box that held the millions of microscopic particles that, once fully assembled, would comprise my daughter’s soon-to-be favorite new bicycle.  I dumped everything onto the ground in search of something resembling an instruction manual and found only a single sheet of paper with some Chinese characters in the top margin, followed by a cartoon of a bicycle magically assembling itself.  I rolled my eyes and cursed some more as I started piecing together the bike, frame by frame of the menacing Chinese cartoon.

It’s common knowledge in our family that I am not the most handy person around.  It’s also widely accepted that certain projects, such as installing ceiling fans, putting up sunscreens, hanging crown molding and (thanks to this specific incident) assembling bicycles, are likely to present me with enough frustration to push me beyond my limitations and are likely to be accompanied by loud grumblings and intermittent profanity.  So Mrs. Claus decided to steer clear of the garage on this fine Christmas Eve.  

After several rounds of banging and yelling hailing from Santa’s workshop, Mrs. Claus decided to send one of the elves into the garage to inquire as to what kind of sandwich Santa wanted for lunch, instead of coming herself.  It’s not exactly clear to me now why Mrs. Claus didn’t think through the ramifications of sending an elf into Santa’s workshop where it would be discovered by that same elf that Santa wasn’t actually the one building her present, but this Mr. Claus has never truly been able to understand his Mrs.  Nevertheless, at some point during the construction of the bike, I looked up to see a pair of loving blue eyes, though slightly bewildered, looking at me, followed by a precious little voice that asked, “Daddy, Mommy wants to know if you want ham or turkey.”

Now before you go wringing your hands and assuming that Christmas was ruined for a 3 year old girl, you should consider a couple of things, as I did in the wake of that horrible moment.  First of all, while our eyes could clearly see each other as she stood in the doorway and I sat on the opposite corner of the garage, there were several piles of boxes and assorted junk between us.  So it was entirely possible, as I reasoned in that moment, that she never actually saw what I was building.  Furthermore, this story is about Emily – my most preoccupied child.  Emily has always lived in her own little world.  She’s now 9 and comically refers to her own land of make believe as “Lou-Lou Land” (named after her middle name, Louella), a place she’s frequented since she emerged from the womb.  She has the potential to walk right by an elephant in an otherwise empty room and miss it if her mind is on something else.  So I further reasoned that she was so pre-occupied by turkey or ham that she never thought twice about what I was building beneath the pile of boxes and assorted junk.

I went in to eat lunch.  I glared at Mrs. Claus and sarcastically thanked her for sending Emily, of all people, into the garage to inquire about my lunch order.  She gasped and covered her mouth as the realization of what she had just done smacked her upside the head.  But Emily said nothing or gave any indication that anything was out of the ordinary.

After lunch I finished the bike, and soon it was time to begin the Benmas festivities.  We opened presents, we had cake, but Emily said nothing.  We went out to eat that night at Mr. Claus’s favorite restaurant – Carrabba’s – and still, Emily said nothing.  We came home and began focusing our attention on Christmas itself.  We read the story of Jesus’ birth to the kids and discussed the true meaning of Christmas.  We then spread “reindeer food” out on our front lawn in hopes of giving Santa’s magical creatures a little snack as they paused at our house.  We each opened 1 present and then tucked the kids into bed.  Still, Emily said nothing.

She hadn’t noticed a thing!  Bullet dodged and Christmas saved!

The next morning, we were awakened by 2 very excited children ready to go see what Santa had brought them.  At our house, Mom and Dad have to be roused before anyone is allowed to see what Santa left behind, and for some reason, our kids have never questioned this silly rule.  So we walked to the den as a family, and Emily’s face lit up like the Christmas tree itself when she saw her shiny new bicycle in the middle of the floor.  She ran to it, climbed aboard and began riding all over the house.  She was as happy then as I have ever seen her, not once questioning the bike’s origins.  The kids spent the next 2 hours opening presents, calling relatives and playing with their new toys as Mrs. Claus and I soaked in the moment and eventually prepared a big breakfast for the family.

The excitement of the morning soon waned, and we enjoyed a quiet breakfast as a family.  Halfway through our holiday meal, little three year old Emily piped up and said to me as I sipped my coffee, “Daddy, I know that Santa didn’t bring me that bicycle because I saw you building it yesterday.”

Pppppppppppffffffffffffft, went the air out of my Christmas spirit balloon now hanging limp and lifeless over the breakfast table.  

“What?” I asked incredulously, “no, you don’t understand!” I had no idea where I was going, but I had already started going there.  Half panicked and half curious as to how I would salvage the moment, I listened to myself go on, “See, honey, I didn’t want to tell you kids this but… well… Santa and I are friends.  We’ve known each other for years.  And I told him a long time ago if he ever needed any help to just let me know.  And this year, he’s been sick a lot, so he needed some help.  He called me up last week and asked if I wouldn’t mind building your bike for him, and I told him that I had the day off on Christmas Eve and that he could just bring it by the house early…”

I rambled on and on, but amazingly, my little girl hung on every word.  Anyone else would have needed a shovel, but not my Emily.  She wanted so desperately to believe, that she extended me the benefit of the doubt at every turn.  And when my story was complete, Christmas had just been elevated to a whole new place in her eyes.  After all, not every kid could say that their Daddy was friends with the Big Man himself!

Ike the Knife

Just found this post today - it's a blog I wrote earlier in the year, but never posted.  Better late than never.  Enjoy.

A few days ago, I encountered one of those rare Hallmark moments that seem to be reserved only for those fortunate enough to hail from the Dismukes clan.  It was a precious moment that marked the passage of my eldest (and only) son from childhood to adolescence.  It was a moment filled with excitement, confusion, panic and blood - a moment where the cold steel of a knife blade parted his flesh like Moses passing through the Red Sea.  There have been many historic blade wounds throughout the history of mankind – the beheading of Marie Antoinette, the stabbing of Julius Caesar, the emasculation of John Wayne Bobbit – but none had the impact on my life that this particular incident carried.

The night of the wounding began in relative normalcy.  I was at home alone with the kids, while my wife was at a PTO meeting.  I had all the girls in the den, where we were watching a little TV.  Isaac had been playing quietly back in his room, or at least that’s what we thought he was doing.  As we watched Rachel Ray prepare a tasty and healthy meal in 30 minutes or less, we heard a strange noise coming down the hall.  Shhh-klump, shhh-klump, shhh-klump.  Isaac peered around the corner hunched over, grabbing his leg, while mumbling incessantly, “I’m sorry Daddy, I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry, Daddy.  I cut myself, and I’m so sorry.”

“Wait.  What?  Did you say cut?  Why do you keep saying you’re sorry?  If you cut yourself, you’d be crying.  Why aren’t you crying?  What are you so sorry about?  What’s going on here?”  All these thoughts ran through my mind, but I didn’t voice any of them.  I was in process mode, and I was looking for any little bit of information that would help me reach a decision as to what to do next.  The banter continued. “Daddy, I’m so sorry, Mama’s going to be so mad.  I cut myself…” he said as he shhh-klumped his way closer to the couch.  And there it was, the first glimpse of blood – a tiny trickle ran from under his clenched hand down to his ankle, disappearing into his sock.  But he wasn’t crying.  “I’m confused,” I think to myself as I grasp at any straw that smacks of logic.  Fake blood.  The boy has bought a container of fake blood and is doing his worst knife victim impersonation. 

After a cursory round of questioning, I eliminated the possibility of fake blood and moved on to actual injury.  But judging by the volume of blood trickle and the absence of tears, I surmised that we were dealing with a scrape or, at worse, a tiny nick.  Convinced that my son was overreacting, I made him shhh-klump his own way into the kitchen where I could get a better look at his “wound”.  All the while, he’s still mumbling, “I’m so sorry Daddy, I cut myself.  Mama’s gonna be so mad.”

Prepared for nothing but the best, I made him release his death grip on his leg so I could get a better look.  As he moved his hand to the side, he revealed a 5 inch long swath of flesh hanging precariously from his leg.  If I didn’t know better, I would swear I saw it flopping about in the breeze.  A surge of blood gushed from his open wound as his little heart pounded, and as the red goo oozed, I felt my head begin to swim.  I’m not ordinarily bothered by gore, but there’s something about seeing the inside of a body belonging to one of your own.  It’s… well, it’s just not natural.

I immediately called for help with the girls (one of the many benefits of living close by to grandparents) and whisked the boy off to the ER.  After 8 or 9 stitches, the full story emerged.  Isaac was testing the sharpness of his new blade.  While testing to see if it would shave the hairs off his leg, he slipped and sliced his way to serious cut.  Apparently, the blade is plenty sharp enough.

To his credit, the boy handled the hospital visit like a trooper.  No crying - only the kind of gritty toughness that makes a father proud.  And while I had initially questioned his intelligence after hearing his account of the incident, I admired the display of manhood demonstrated in the ER.  After all, life is full of nicks and bruises, but manhood is partly a measure of the way in which one deals with them.  (Or at least it is for men, anyway.  I wouldn’t imagine we would talk about how manly a woman is for not crying while getting stitches… but I digress.)

This milestone was one I hope and pray I never live through again, but having come through it, I’m appreciative of what it revealed – a son who, though he may be prone to mistakes (like all of us), has the resolve to emerge a better man for it.

The Day My Son Officially Went Too Far

I have recently decided that I might be a strong candidate for Anger Management therapy.  I’ve always had a bit of a temper, but in the past few years, it’s become a bit more serious.  If you want to know the severity, please read the blog entitled “Hello Anger, My Old Friend.”  However, I am now consciously aware of the problem, and as they say, that’s (hopefully) at least half the battle.  Nothing made me more aware of the problem like a recent episode involving my 11 year old son.

I should pause here to point out that in his 11 (almost 12) mischief-filled years of living here on Earth, he has never really done anything that has truly shocked me.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s all boy and is constantly pushing every limit and button he knows to push of, and many he’s not aware of, all because that’s what boys do.  And so despite all the outbursts in crowded shopping centers and all the publicly repeated comments meant only for private ears and all the broken precious items that once belonged to family and friends and all the times of outright disobedience, my son has always lived within the boundaries of expectations – that is, until last week.

We were in Phoenix, visiting family.  It had been an especially long day – one in which we had been on the road for 2 hours in what I would call ‘doable traffic’, meaning it wasn’t a bumper to bumper parking lot, but rather a large number of cars barreling down the highway at a speed that is both acceptable and stress-inducing all at the same time.  I know it’s no excuse, but I was a little on edge from the traffic stress and very much tired from having to wake up earlier than I would have preferred, given that I was on vacation - a fact that was lost on no one in the truck at the time.  We were on the interchange between the 101 Loop and the northbound lane of I-17 in north Phoenix.  The ramp is two lanes wide, and since I was aware of the fact that those 2 lanes would soon converge into 1, I legally and conscientiously changed lanes leftward (and by conscientiously, I mean with no intent to impede or inflame any other motorists in the vicinity – a fact that you should hold on to as we plod along the storyline).   All was well until we got to the little stretch of road beyond the merging point where there’s no more dotted line in the center of the road, but the space between the 2 solid white lines is more than enough for just one vehicle, temporarily speaking, of course.  As we hit this space I affectionately call “no man’s land”, the car behind me decided that the view must be better from the front and pulled over to the right to pass me – in no man’s land.

As I pointed out earlier, we were travelling at a pretty good clip down the highway – I would guess 60 to 65 - so real estate quickly became an issue for us both as we barreled down the ever narrowing stretch of road, side by side.  Caught in a game of chicken I had no intention of playing, I braked hard as the car and its reckless driver swerved in front of me and away from the solid concrete wall on its right.

At this point I, along with everyone else in the vehicle, realized that I officially have an issue with anger.  I said things you wouldn’t expect to hear in a PG-13 movie – good thing my sweet little girls were asleep.  My lovely wife quickly chided me.  I didn’t hear her words of correction, however, because my son had some choice words of his own. His were PG, but the situation swiftly deteriorated from there. 

As I now recount the story, I can see the whole scene unfold in sloth-like motion.  Rest assured, however, the following events happened in such rapid succession that I was unable to think as clearly as I can now.  In a fit of rage, I hastily chose to get even with this numbskull, who had ruined my otherwise perfectly tolerable drive, by pulling up beside him and giving him the look of death.  In moments such as this one, where I’m simply recounting a story with little, if any, emotion other than shame, I well know that glaring at someone does next to nothing to extract revenge.  In fact, my experience tells me that most of my evil looks at other motorists simply go unnoticed, which only makes me madder.  After all, if I’m going to glare at someone, the proper thing for them to do is at least take notice.  But as I said, I wasn’t thinking with my head, but rather with the adrenaline that was coursing through my veins.  So I commenced with operation stare down. 

As my foot hit the accelerator, my son popped off a question, “want me to flip ‘em off, Daddy?”  I promptly answered with a resolute, “yes!”  And before I could correct myself, I caught a glimpse of his little arm flailing about in the window, middle finger extended.  I gasped, “What are you doing?” I then noticed that the “he” who was driving the car was a very much elderly “she”, who gawked back at my son and me as if we were the Manson family.  A wave of nausea hit me like a baseball bat to the groin.  Thoroughly embarrassed, I turned away, hung my head in shame and eased off the accelerator.  I was a monster – not a father.

In all fairness, I truly thought he was joking.  My son has never seen me give anyone the finger.  I know this because for all of my flaws, flipping people off is not one.  I always saw that gesture as being beneath me, somehow.  However, my half-joking, half-angry ‘yes’ was enough license for him to begin gesturing like a drunken sailor at a blue haired, cataract sun-glasses adorned old lady who’s only sin was scaring the bejeepers out of me, a trigger-happy, stressed out driving buffoon.

My wife quickly moved from chiding to outright rebuke, and I can’t blame her in the least.  I may as well have doused the boy with gasoline and given him a lighter to play with.  This is what’s known as an epic fail in the fatherhood department, and I owned up to it. 

Few things have ever truly shocked me.  At the top of my list is the sight of my son flipping off an old lady…  with my permission.

How to Teach Perseverance For Those Who Lack Patience – Part 2 – or Dusting Off Your Old Basketball Injuries

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m committed to the seemingly endless task of teaching my children the virtue of perseverance, and if things don’t start to click soon, I might throw in the towel.  For those of you that are wondering, I still have all 5 chickens, but they seem a little reluctant to give us any eggs.  I wonder if they can lay at will.  If I were a hen, and I’ve been called that in my younger years (kids will call you anything as long it rhymes with your name), I would definitely not lay eggs for a kid who has trouble remembering when meal times are. 

This fall, my son has decided to be a 2 sport athlete.  Retract that… actually he decided to be a 1 sport athlete and is playing football, but since I agreed to help coach cross country for the school, he was forced into joining the cross country team in addition to his participation in football.  Growing up, I always played sports.  Baseball was my thing, and I have to confess, I always imagined myself to be a pretty good ballplayer – much more so than those around me, including my coaches, apparently.  I could never understand why they didn’t see in me the things I saw myself, but that is likely the subject of another story, meant for another time.  I also played basketball and tennis.  I tell you all this in order to say with some semblance of authority that you can learn a lot from playing a team sport, and perhaps just as much playing an individual sport like tennis.  And whether or not my son is ever skilled enough (in his eyes as well as the eyes of those who ‘matter’) or interested enough to play in high school, or perhaps even beyond, it’s important that he have the experience afforded to him by athletics in these crucial developmental years, thus the reason for my possibly overzealous decision to make cross country mandatory for him.

While football is great, if he decides not to play another year, I’ll be okay with that decision.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching him play.  Seeing him dance around play after play desperately avoiding every player on the field while trying to appear as if he’s interesting in blocking and tackling reminds me of how reluctant I was to get hit at that age.  He plays both cornerback and wide receiver and while on offense, has only had a few balls thrown his way all year.  One of those he caught, but it was one of his misses that made me most proud of him.  His team was playing a team with much bigger athletes, and on this particular play, he went over the middle on a crossing route where he found a perfectly thrown ball headed straight for his chest.  I’m not exactly sure of the timing of events that unfolded, but at some point, all three of these things happened in quick succession.  He reached up, grabbed the ball, and took a suffocating blow to his side by a very large, salivating linebacker who had watched the whole play evolve with the scent of blood in his nostrils.  The ball came loose as quickly as he had ‘caught’ it, and my boy went flying through the air sideways, rib-cage first, with head and feet in tow, until he landed hard on the ground.  I jumped up, thinking his football days had come to an abrupt end, but no sooner had I stood to my feet did I see him bounce back up and run to the huddle.  After the game I bragged on him for taking such a lick and getting back up, to which he replied, “Daddy, I don’t know why, but the referees aren’t calling roughing the catcher today.”

But football is not the sport I am writing about today.  Cross-country - a sport I used to think was for the weaker kids who weren’t talented enough to do anything else - is.  In the past few weeks, my stance on cross-country, if you consider it important enough of an ‘issue’ upon which to take a stance, has changed dramatically.  Those brave enough to participate in cross-country deserve to be called athlete.  Runners are quite possibly the gutsiest of athletes, having whipped their bodies into shape by the sheer force of their resolve.  And as my views have evolved, I’ve come to the conclusion that every child ought to have to run cross country competitively at some point in his or her childhood. 

It goes without saying that distance running is a tremendous way to exercise, which everyone needs, but the beauty of running is that anyone with healthy legs can do it, regardless of ability (as I so astutely, if not rudely, pointed out a few sentences ago).  But it also teaches kids how to compete against themselves, which, when you get down to it, is what 75% of life is about.  The key to success in life, in my view, is knowing how and when to battle and overcome oneself.  And distance running is metaphor for life. 

To us, it is the most sacred of metaphors.  It’s the grid work through which we discipline.  Kids not practicing the piano?  No problem, we’ll just have a conversation about the importance of conditioning yourself for the race, only in this case, the ‘race’ is actually the recital.  (On a side note, you might think piano recitals are more about the expression of art and less about competition, but I think that is utter nonsense.  To me, EVERYTHING is about winning, no matter how seemingly subjective a task.)  Kids fighting and arguing?  We’ll just discuss the value of teamwork while running a race, and before you go there, yes, cross-country is a team sport, as well as an individual one.  The kids encourage and push each other, and that makes them better.  So I simply dust off an analogy of the importance of teamwork in the game of life, asserting that we Dismukes are a team, and if we stick together, we can win at just about anything we set our minds to.  And if the kids are in need of a little old-fashioned punishment, I just make them run an extra mile in order to teach them a lesson.  My rationale is, it hurts more than a spanking does and for a much longer period of time.  And in the end, my kids have not only learned their lesson, they are now more physically fit as well. 

The greatest life lesson, in my opinion, one can take away from running distance, however, is the virtue of perseverance.  When we started, neither of my children could run a mile without stopping to walk every 15 paces.  But I pushed them into embracing the pain brought about by pushing their little bodies beyond their perceived limitations.  How I did this, I’m not sure, but I take full credit for whatever caused them to strive for greatness (only kidding, of course, we Dismukes are born with an inherent desire to achieve greatness and need little external motivation).  And because they did, I now have unlimited opportunities to help translate that experience into solutions for everyday life situations. 

Everything in life worth doing is met with some form of resistance.  The friction created from meeting that resistance almost always results in pain of some kind.  It could be the personal sacrifice of devoting one’s time to a noble cause or the emotional pain of entering into a relationship with another person.  We are almost never unsusceptible to pain.  Winners, as I tell my kids, learn to push through the pain, and Dismukes are winners.

Not all Dismukes are winners enough to push all the way through their pain, however.  This particular Dismukes stopped running just 2 weeks into practice because he enflamed an old basketball knee injury.  However, I will say that there are certain benefits to being legitimately injured.  I now coach from the couch in my den – a fact that has somehow eluded my 2 kids who still listen to everything that I say.  But let’s not waste too much time focusing on that minor detail.   This story is about raising up the next generation of winners (and by the way, in my book, all Dismukes are winners – even the injured ones).

Now comes the part where I brag on my children.  In a matter of just under 2 months, I have seen my kids come to love running.  If you’ve never been in the habit of jogging, you might think this strange, but there comes a point in time where the pain of running actually becomes somewhat addictive (unless, of course, it’s the pain of an old basketball injury – there’s nothing addictive about that).  You actually enjoy the feeling of pushing your body beyond its limitations.  I think my children have started show signs that they’re truly enjoying what started out as a chore.  Both have competed in their first meet, and both did extremely well under the circumstances.  My 9 year old daughter ran against 90 some odd Jr. High girls and finished somewhere around 50^th place – well ahead of anyone else on her team – 2 of them, 7^th graders.  All in all, not bad for a 4^th grader who couldn’t run a third of a mile without stopping just a month and a half ago.  She is so encouraged, she considers cross-country to be “her thing”, and now brags when she can run 2 miles without stopping to walk. 

All of my kids have the potential to be great at whatever they set their minds to, and cross-country has helped highlight that fact.  All they needed was a little perseverance, which I’m thrilled I was able to teach them… at least partially.  And it’s a good thing… I was just about ready to give up.