I blog to you tonight from Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. If you are an authority figure in the state of Pennsylvania looking to collect the bounty on my head from my 2005 $107.69 garbage bill that I REFUSE to pay, you’re too late. I’m already gone.
I am participating in the third installment of a monthly training seminar for work. Three down, three more to go. When I go on these trips I travel with one of my co-workers who from henceforth shall be known as Bonds. If you are a Forgotten Realms fan, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out her real first name. If you are not a Forgotten Realms fan, now don’t you regret not being one?
You should also know that everyday I consume at least two large French Vanilla ice coffees, light with cream, and with four Splendas that comes from Dunkin Donuts. With the ice coffees usually comes a plethora of brown recycled napkins that I tend to collect in the middle console for those inopportune sneezes or hacking coughs I might experience. As Poppy will surely attest to, I usually have quite a wad on the console or between the console and the seat.
So Bonds and I are driving down I-95 last night. We’re movin’ and we’re groovin’ to the iPod‘s current selection of Wild Thing by Tone Loc. It is during this song that I decide I need to partake in a little nicotine fix. Bonds, who is only an occasional partaker, decides she will also partake provided I give her access to a flame. I lit my little cancer stick with a match because my wonderful Bic lighter had already flicked its butane guts out. I then pass Bonds the book of matches.
This is where things go horribly wrong.
With my window cracked, she lights a match and puffs her cigarette to life.
Before blowing out the match, she cracks open her window.
The cross winds snap the lit match head from the stem… and it falls to the floor.
Bonds promptly alerted me to the situation with a blood curdling scream… as the wad of Dunkin’ Donuts napkins that had unintentionally slid to the floor from the console became engulfed in flame.
Did I mention I had three oxygen tanks in the truck? Yeah. Eye ez smaht.
So Bonds starts stomping out the napkin as I begin swerving across the lanes to try and reach the shoulder of the road before my mirrors are completely obstructed by the copious amounts of smoke winding their way through the truck. Luckily we make it over, Bonds jumps out struggling with a water bottle in hand, and I instinctively splash the napkins that are roasting my Radioshack inverter with none other than the dregs of my afternoon ice coffee.
I then jump out, and fighting the air turbulence of the 75mph travelling tractor trailers make my way around to the passenger side. I reach in past Bonds and scoop out the remains of the smoldering napkin. I toss it on the ground and Bonds hits it with a squirt from the Poland Spring sports bottle she finally managed to uncap.
And that, my dear friends, is How Dunkin Donuts Almost Killed Me In A Blaze Of Flaming Glory, which was the alternative title to this post.
So has anything exciting happened to you lately?
It has been two years since that day when my world was abruptly altered.
731 days.
That number makes it seem like it has been a long time.
Yet, I can still remember standing at my dispatch station trying to resolve an issue with one of the units who had been extended for a patient. I remember my cellphone ringing… my ex-wife’s name Pudding coming up on the screen… and answering that call to hear four words spoken from someone other than Pudding…
There’s been an accident.
Followed by four words that dropped the bottom out from beneath me and forever altered my world…
DJ‘s in cardiac arrest.
It has been two years since those words were spoken to me.
It has been two years and yet it feels like it was both yesterday and a long time ago.
A day does not go by when I don’t think about him and the events that unfolded during that time. A day does not go by when I don’t wonder about what decisions I could have made that would have avoided that moment. A day does not go by when I don’t feel pangs of guilt over having not brought DJ to experience something like the Bronx Zoo or the circus. A day does not go by when I wonder what could have been as opposed to what is. A day does not go by when guilt, sorrow, and remorse doesn’t threaten to overtake my very being and shake me violently to my core in order to bring my sanity to its knees.
It has been two years and my life is different in many ways other than the grief I feel.
I really cannot find complaint with my life as it is today. I am living with a woman who loves me. I have a job. I still have dreams and aspirations. The last two years have gone incredibly well for me… yet this fog of sorrow persists. It is unshakable and to deny that fact would be wrong. This second year has not been emotionally “easier” as some have suggested it might… or perhaps my expectations were just set too high for this fog to lift.
It has been two years and I still love and miss him as if no time has passed at all…
As if to amplify my emotions, today is also Father’s Day.
If there was ever a day for me to enjoy a day of Xanax with vodka chasers, today would be that day.
When a spouse dies, the surviving spouse is called a widow. When parents die, the surviving child is called an orphan. When a child dies, there is no name for the surviving parents. This absence of a definitive label has left me wondering many times where exactly do I fit in?
Yet I am not exclusive in my situation. There are other parents out there… other father’s who have lost their child and are possibly just cringing at the calendar for no other reason. The important thing I try to remember is that through the tears, the sobs, and the feelings of grief I am not alone. Those same feelings are shared by other father’s who find themselves childless… just like me.
We still think about, care about and love a child that is our own. Therefore the loss of a child does not change the fact that we are indeed fathers.
It just changes the way we spend the day.
It’ll be a Xanax and vodka day, on the rocks, for me.
For those who are spending it the traditional way… with barbecues, neckties, and beer… take a minute and give your children an extra special squeeze and thank them.
They made you what you are today… a father… and you should thank them for that opportunity every chance you get.
categories: It's All About Me Personal Memories Remembering DJ
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After reading Avitable‘s post about his 5-year Blogiversary I felt suddenly very shameful for my lack’o’posting. I also didn’t answer his question about what I like best about blogging because I really have no desire for an iPod Touch… and I needed something for these bullets:
• I like the diversity of the people behind the blogs - I like the fact that I get exposed to different points of view than I may normally be exposed to. Even though I live in one of the most diverse cities on the planet… it’s still nice to get the point of view from outside of that geographical sphere. This also makes going to blogger events like TequilaCon and Avitaween alot of fun… because even though you are amongst a diverse group that you may only have one or two things in common with… you realize that you’re really not all that different as you may have previously believed.
• I like the writing on the blogs - As an aspiring writer I think one of the best ways to improve on my writing is to read others. Additionally… and I’m being completely honest here… its easier to read than to write.
• I like the photos on the blogs - Being a very visual person… I like to look at pictures. A lot. I think there are some incredibly talented photobloggers out there and I think that there are still more to find.
• I like the activism the blogs inspire - Unless you’ve been living under a rock you may have heard that last week’s Iranian Elections didn’t turn out the way people wanted. The crack smoking holocaust denier got re-elected… supposedly. However there is shadiness and the Iranians are speaking out. So as a way to show your support for them you can change your Twitter Avatar green. Sure its your Twitter Avatar instead of your blog… but most of those using Twitter that I follow are bloggers… so its kinda like the same thing.
• I like the virtual perpetual nature of the blogs - What I blog today is here tomorrow… and the day after that… and the day after that… and so one. As long as I pay for hosting and renew my domain name (two things I did just last month) that is. Of course I might live on in search engines a bit longer but if I decide to use a service… well it could be there perpetually. I suppose that’s always been one of the things about blogs that I like… it’s a way to be remembered after you’re gone.
• I like to save the last bullet LeSombre style for when I lose internet
Have a good weekend…
categories: It's All About Me Blogging
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P.S.
I know Dave2, Poppy, Kim, and Breigh all left comments (for which I thank them for their input) but this post is really about me being a lazy blogger than about comments.
Because besides that, the only other thing I had was one of my photos was used by SlashFood.
Big deal, right?
Yesterday Poppy and I took The Wolves to go see the newest Disney/Pixar film Up.
Now look, I grew up with Disney films and they haven’t always been the… eh… happiest. Snow White‘s parents die, Bambi‘s mother gets shot by a hunter, and Cinderella is practically an indentured servant because of yet more dead parents. It’s all some pretty sad stuff in order to sell some movie tickets. Pixar films on the other hand have alway pretty much been happy films. There are no dead parents in Toy Story, or hunted down mothers in Cars, or indentured servitude in Monsters Inc. The saddest Pixar movie to date is within the first 5 minutes of Finding Nemo… which explains why I hate that movie.
Up has surpassed that movie in its ability to invoke the sad.
Possible Spoilers Ahead
Within 5 minutes this movie had me blubbering like a baby. Literally. It is the saddest start to a movie I have ever seen. Normally there’s a sad part sometime in the middle or towards the end of the movie… like when Buzz finds out he’s really just a toy, or Sully and Mike get banished after Randall captures Boo, or even when McQueen gets yanked out of Radiator Springs by his sponsor.
categories: Creative Bones Motion Pictures
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