The New Trash Jewelry

A couple of years ago our oldest daughter had a wrist band placed around her wrist at the Hot Rocking 4th of July festival. Little did we know at the time that it was the first of many more to come. We celebrated the 4th and then we went on home. Sometime later; maybe in September and quite possibly October, we heard her let out a shrill shriek and the whimpering sound of "NNNOOOOOoooo."

"What?" I asked her.

"My BAND!" She cried.

"Your what?"

"MY BAND!" She whimpered again.

"Okay." I said, pointing two fingers at my eyes and then her eyes and then back at my eyes. And willing her to focus I said, "What are you talking about?"

"My wristband from the 4th of July. It broke."

She held up a thin piece of string that somewhat resemble the nylon cord that gets wrapped around a bale of hay. Only this was gray and stringy and gray. As I got a better look at it, I could tell it was actually just a piece of trash. Inside my head I was doing the math and asking myself questions. That was like three months ago I thought. My daughter has been wearing trash on her hand for almost three months now. How did I miss seeing that? And what was that other thing on her wrist? Is that more trash!

"Dude," I pointed at her hand, "What's on your wrist?"

"That's from roller skating." She replied with a smile.

"Why are you wearing this...this...this stuff on your hand?"

"It's cool." She informed me.

Immediately we went head to head about taking off the trash, but she informed me that these unique pieces of string were getting washed everyday. She took very good care of them and they were washed every time she took a bath. The only thing I could think of was what if she cut her wrist somehow. She could get gangrene from these things.

And then finally she said, "Mom, knows."

I then looked at her mom and shook my head. Holding both of my hands out in front of me palms up, I gave her a gesture that said, "WTH?"

"Yeah," Mom said, "About that...she has been washing them."

Even her school teachers were aware of her newly found jewelry. Sometime this past year her music teacher asked her what she was wearing. Jenifer just held up her hand and showed her the different bands that she had on. Her teacher asked, "Is this like...something religious?"

"Uhh...sure." Jeni offered, and then walked away.

I think the only religious thing about them is she never takes them off.

I Miss You

This is the weekend. The one that haunts me. For four years now I have done this dance.
I jokingly asked you when you left the building if you were coming back.
"I don't know." or "Maybe." was your reply.
It seemed as though I could no more tell than you could -- the way you looked down at your feet -- as you stared out into the...
...the what? The distance? The Past and Future present?
You had no more walked out the door when I called Lois.
"Something's wrong!" I said.
"Call her." she replied.
Minutes later worked consumed me.
I got busy. I forgot.

When I got off work I finally remembered. I made the call. No answer. I left a message.
"L. It's me. You kind of scared me when you left the building. Are you doing alright? Call me."
It was the first message of three that I would leave you. Each one more panicked than the last.
I always wondered what they heard when they went through your phone messages later. When your father hit play messages. When your kids passed the phone back and forth.
Somebody would have recognized my fear and then said, "He knew."

It was a very long weekend. Every time I called you it went straight to voice mail and I resolved to tell myself you just went out of town, you were out with your friends, everything was all right. Everything was all right.

I called work on Tuesday night. "R., it's Beaux. I have a question."
"Shoot." R. said.
"Do you know if L. ever came to work today?"
There was a long pause. Too long. I almost dropped the phone.
"Oh Beaux! You haven't heard yet have you?"
R. couldn't speak anymore.
"She's not coming back is she." I half asked.
"No." R. said, "She's not coming back."

Later I started to remember. You had been giving your things away. You gave one of your kids your telescope. Your most prized possession. You had mentioned other things that you had given the children. Your bike. Why did I not see that? My intuition has always been very strong. I should have found you four years ago. I should have hunted you down.
But they say it was too late. Everything happened early on. And even if I had found you. Even if I could have stopped you. It may have only been for that day. Or maybe a week. Maybe even a year. But you would have eventually chose the path you were on. I think the world had already driven you to this end. Your pain, your sadness, your body. They had all said enough.
It was on this day 4 years ago when you walked out that door. I still remember your half smile. Your voice when you said, "I might come back."
It was your voice that made me look up from what I was doing.
It was your voice that made me call Lois.
I wish I had walked out that door with you.
I wish I had trusted my instinct.
I wish I had held your hand and said don't do this.

I miss you.

Roller Babies

This is cute.

A Moving Story

If you haven't already heard of 5 year old Kate McRae then you should visit Maggie May's blog at Flux Capacitor or stop by Here or just visit the internets to find other stories about this young girl.
About three weeks ago Kate McRae had a tremor in her right hand and was taken to Phoenix Children's Hospital for a CT scan. Holly McRae; Kates mother, soon learned that Kate had a massive brain tumor the size of an egg and that she needed surgery. Holly called her husband Aaron shortly after that and the whole families nightmare slowly started to unfold.
You can read more of Holly and Aaron's journal pages at carebridge.org.

Open Letter to Alyson on Her Birthday.

My Dearest Alyson,

Now that you have your own Kodak camera, I hope that you are ready to part with mine. Please make sure that you wipe your grimy fingerprints off of it and carefully return it to its rightful place and owner (me). And please don't break your new camera, (because we didn't buy the extended warranty). I'm not really sure why; because you're only eleven.

With this in mind: Happy Birthday Sweetheart.

I can't believe that you are starting out a whole new decade on planet earth. I sometimes had my doubts that you would make it this far, but I will explain all this to you in another decade.

I want you to know that I love you very much. You are a wonderful daughter and a sweet blessing. You have such a kind heart and so much compassion for everyone. Animals just love you. You are like the zoo whisperer. If I ever end up in a lion's den I would want you to be there with me (I am not joking). If I ever go on safari, I want you with me. You have such compassion for others but I wish you would stop watching the news. It breaks my heart when I see your face when there is something bad on (which is all the time) because your empathy for others is just so powerful. But your kindness is extraordinary. I've seen you cry for strangers because their plight in life has affected you so much. Sometimes I think you're a very old soul in a very little body. I love that when you go to bed you try very hard to include everyone in your prayers, but sometimes I'm pretty sure you're just pushing to stay up late when you start talking about the tree that fell over or the bug that got squashed.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart. And please consider this your birthday card because I forgot to buy you one.

Love, Daddy.

I know my name, but who am I?

I grew up in the likes of a Buddhist ashram chanting Hari Chrisna. It is perhaps my most memorable memory from childhood. I was raised by a group of burned out hippies who knew and followed Timothy Leary through the '60s. I was reading books like the 'Bhagavad Gita' and 'Be Here Now', the former written from ancient text, while the latter had barely come out in print. Those books meant nothing to me then, but I would read them again a dozen years later so as to understand them. Here I would learn about Arjuna's journey towards battle and his talks with Krishna, and follow the antics of the good doctors tales. I spent my mornings watering flower gardens, tending a gold fish pond and grooming foot trails that led from one building to another. There were round adobe-like yurts and small buildings spread out across a few acres of land on a thousand acre ranch in the Arizona desert. My hair was down to my butt and I had the nickname Snake. I was also a ward of the State.
When I was 11 years old I ran away from home and I ended up living in a group home in the Sonoran Desert near the base of the Rincon Mountains. I lived there with dozens of people. We were men and women, and boys and girls. And we were all there for different reasons. Some of us were sent there, while others just came. We were lost souls and runaways. We were bullies and thieves. And we were disheartened victims of abuse. In 1973 I was a runaway. For almost two and a half years I lived this life, and then one day I walked away. Everything I learned; everything I believed, it all happened here.
Early on as children we are marked by scars and injuries both mental and physical that we carry into the future. They are the wounds that link our past to present; uniting infancy with age. They bear witness to the people we become and are a testament to the lives we lead. It is rare to go through life without them.
At night we would gather in the dining hall. Wood carved tables and chairs filled the room. The walls were made of stone and cement at least one foot thick. A large round open-faced fireplace was in the center of the room for those cold winter nights. I still remember the smell of mesquite wood burning. They built that place two years before I came. In the summer the students and teachers united, and months of work followed. Boulders of river rock had to be moved into place. Eight foot sections of railroad ties were stood upright and were the supporting structure for the walls. Layers of cement and river rock were poured in between them. Inside giant timbers ran across the ceiling locking out the light of day. I do not know how long it took them, but I can imagine the months of pain. I can almost feel their blisters and certainly there is blood inside those walls. These people left other things as well. Small relics as reminders. On one wall you will see a handful of marbles embedded in the cement in an intricate design. There are names in the cement floor and you will see a peace sign next to an Anhk. There are green and purple glass insulators protruding out of the walls here and there for coat hangers. Burned into the wood you will see symbols such as the Yin and Yang, more peace signs and the Hindu Om sign of Absolute.
Inside there was a corner library. Bookshelves lined the walls. Over the next two years I would read most of them: Carlos Castaneda, William Goldman, Kurt Vonnegut and Wilson Rawls. There are titles I can’t even remember and titles I can: The Catcher and the Rye; Mister God, this is Anna; and Gibran’s Prophet. Sitting there at night I would read line after line and verse after verse. I was particularily enamored with Castaneda's story 'The Yaqui Way of Knowledge' because I am a Yaqui Indian. This story was unique to me because in its own way it tied me to a heritage I knew nothing about. I eventually outgrew my fascination with Castaneda. Don Juan was a little too colorful of a character for me and so I stuck a little closer to home.
My parents and I never spent much time living together, sometimes I think it was act of preservation. But the fact is they were my parents, and the only parents I ever knew. When my mom died a few years ago I remember that feeling of loneliness. I remember thinking that I was all alone and that I was an orphan. I have felt that way from time to time ever since her passing. And I have always felt like I was the last of my line save for my children. All of that changed today. Today we finally received my adoption records. I don't think I've ever felt this way before. Today I have a name for both of my birth parents. I think I'm going to have to let that sink in for a while.

The Angelina Interview

(Sometime during the hour of 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.; January 2002)

When my wife first told me that she might interview Angelina Jolie, I think my jaw dropped. And if it had been summerime, I think I probably would have swallowed some flies. My wife looked at me and said, "You want to meet her, don't you?"

"YES!" I blurted. Actually "YES!" is the tamer version. I'm pretty sure I said something totally different. But then the hammer fell and she chuckled, "Yeah, well that's not going to happen."

Wiping something that resembled spittle from my face, I looked at her. Why would she do that? Oh yeah...because she can. I carefully composed myself and I think I was primping (just a little). The vanity mirror in the car was down and I was looking at myself. So yes, I was probably primping.

Me: “So...(very nonchalantly)...what's up?”

Wife: “I might be interviewing her."

Me: “Man your job really sucks. How awful would that be.” ( I LOVE THIS JOB OF YOURS!)

Wife: “Excuse me?”

Me: “I said, your job really sucks.”

Wife: “Hmm. Yes, well. (She stops and stares at me.) There's a big conference coming up with Wayne Gretzky, Angelina, and the governor. It's for the Olympics.”

Me: “Hey, I know the governor. Mr. Leavitt’s a fine man.”

Wife: "You don't know the governor. You've only met him. Twice at best.”

Me: "Yeah. Well that's more than all those other people who have met him once."

Wife: "You can't go anyway. You work Saturdays.”

Me: “Hey! Just because I work on Saturdays doesn't mean I can't take them off, (I think) maybe.”

Wife: “Well, anyway...I'm not sure I'm going to do it.”

Me: “Dude! That's Wayne Gretzky you’re talking about. You'll want to do that interview. You should take my camera, too. And take lots of pictures. Of everyone. That's there.”

Wife: “You’re a weirdo. You just want pictures of Angelina.”

Me: “ It's the Olympics man. We should be taking lots of pictures. Of Everyone.”

Wife: “Whatever.”

(Months later)

Me: “Dude, whatever happened to your Angelina interview?”

Wife: “My what?”

Me: “Your Angelina interview?”

Wife: “Who?”

Me: “Angelina Jolie...and, and, and...that other guy. That sports guy. The ice rink guy.”

Wife: “Wayne Gretzky?”

Me: “Yeah, exactly. Whatever happened to that?”

Wife: “It never happened. I was too busy.”

Me: “Dude, you were going to take pictures!”

Wife: “You’re a WEIRDO! And QUIT calling me DUDE!”

I never did get to meet Angelina Jolie because it turns out I work on Saturdays and nobody wants to work for me on Saturdays. They like their Saturdays. And my wife never got to meet her, either, because her work took her somewhere else that saturday also, (OOH...burn) and somebody else got the interview. I never meet anyone.