Smoking grass - Thought I'd add some laughs from an old one...

Every kid has done something stupid growing up and I have to say I did my share.  If I made a list of Stupid Things I Have Done it would probably fill at least two large volumes; one for childhood, and one in progress for adulthood.  In the childhood volume there would be things like jumping off the roof of our house while holding a blanket over my head by the four corners to act as a parachute.  Nothing was broken, but my feet and ankles were pretty sore.  My friends kept asking me why I was walking funny, and of course they thought it was a pretty cool thing to survive a jump off the roof so I told them I jumped off the roof.  Far from thinking it was stupid they actually held me in some reverence for a while.  Every kid wonders what free fall is like, but I had actually experienced it!  The blanket didn’t slow me down, just so you know.  My parents never asked me why I was walking funny.  They assumed that if there was no blood and no significant swelling I was all right.  Besides, if I had told them I would have been banned from the roof. 

The roof was a place that I could go to enjoy the neighborhood a little more.  The view was incredible.  I could see in everyone’s backyard, and down the next street.  I would climb up on the side of the house using the gas and electric meters as a kind of ladder, and then pull myself up.  It was while I was up on the roof one day that I discovered the concept of smoking.  I looked into the backyard of the people that lived behind us.  I never knew who they were, or at least I have no clear memory of them.  My world consisted of Elm Street, San Leandro, California.  Anything beyond that was extraneous information, totally unnecessary and outside my ken.  As I pondered the questions of my young life while up on the roof this day I happened to look over into the neighbors backyard.  I saw a light smoke rising from the other side of the fence, and I heard the distinct sound of coughing.  Really bad coughing.  At first I thought it was my dog coughing up a hairball or something, but I could see him curled up in our backyard sleeping the day away.  I couldn’t see who was on the other side of the fence because they were right up against it, so I yelled, “Hey, what’cha doin’ over there?”

No answer, but the coughing stopped.

“ Is it a fire?” I yelled.

“Shut up!” came the response.

“But what’s goin’ on?”  I yelled again.  Little kids don’t have much of a sense of subtlety.

At this point two teenagers popped their heads up and looked around.  They didn’t see me at first, but my dog Grizzly saw them and started barking.  They were getting a lot more attention than they wanted to I think.  I recognized one of them.  He had tried to bully me and my friends at the park once, and my brother Mike found out about it and beat him up.  I could tell from the look on his face that he remembered me.

“What’s all the smoke from?” I yelled.

“Shut up, we’re smokin’ alright? Just quit yellin’!”

Now one of them had draped his arm over the fence with the cigarette in his hand, and this one didn’t look like the ones I saw my dad sneak out on the porch to smoke.  I don’t think my dad was aware that I knew he smoked, but I saw him out on the porch sometimes at night after I was in bed and he thought I was asleep.  He would stand out there with the cigarette and smoke one before he went back in the house.   I think it was one of those things that everyone else in the house knew about, but never talked about.  I brought it up once. 

“Why were you out on the porch smoking last night, Dad?”  I was just curious.  I didn’t mean to start anything, but my mom gave him a look that I had not seen before, but which roughly translated probably meant something like “I told you the kids would see it!”  She was not happy.

That was the only time I can recall my father looking what can best be described as flustered. 

“Don’t worry about it.” was all he would say to me about it.  He didn’t try to hide it after that though.  In fact, he started smoking a pipe in the house right after that, I think.  I enjoyed the smell of pipe tobacco though. 

Anyway, the cigarette these kids were smoking didn’t look like my dad’s.  The ends were twisted. 

“What kind of cigarette is that?” I asked loudly.

“Will you SHUT UP?!  It’s grass!  Now leave us alone!”   They ducked back down behind the fence and started coughing again so I left them to their own devices. 

Now, I didn’t know what was in cigarettes of any kind at that time and up until now it really held little interest for me.  Now my questioning mind kicked into high gear.  Why, I asked myself, would somebody spend money to buy cigarettes if all that was in them was grass?  Heck, we had yards full of the stuff!  The wheels were spinning quickly now as I climbed down off the roof, and ran over to my best friend’s house down the street.  Ronnie Bateman was a year or two younger than I was, but we had grown up together.  I have no memories of my life on Elm Street without Ronnie Bateman and Peter Schmidt being there.  I don’t know where Peter was that day, but Ronnie listened eagerly to my tale of the smokers in the backyard. 

“They were smoking cigarettes, and they said it was grass!”  I told him.

“I didn’t know they put grass in cigarettes.”  He replied.

“Me neither, but that’s what they said.”

“We could make one of our own.” Said Ronnie.

“Yeah, you want to try it?”  I asked.

“Sure!” he said eagerly.

We went out to his backyard and to the side of his house.  They stacked all their old newspapers over there.  We knew we needed paper, and we didn’t think it mattered what kind.  We didn’t want to go into the house and ask for any so we settled for the weathered, yellow newsprint, the old Oakland Tribune.  Ronnie went into his garage and found some matches while I ran to the front yard and pulled up a handful of grass from their lawn.  The front lawn was greener and thicker than the back lawn so we figured it was better grass.  We sat down and eagerly rolled the grass in a strip of newspaper that we had torn off.  There was no stopping us now.  It was easily three and a half inches long, and probably twice the width of any cigarette we had yet seen.  Since we were using Ronnie’s grass and his paper we both agreed that he should have the first puff.  I wasn’t too worried about it, after all, we had plenty of paper and a big lawn to go through.

He stuck the “cigarette” in his mouth and held the match up to the end. 

“I think you have to suck in while you’re lighting it.” I said.

So he sucked in while he was lighting it.  I suppose there is something to the physics of cigarettes that causes them to burn slowly.  It probably has something to do with the tobacco being tightly packed or something.  This grass was not tightly packed at all, and the newspaper was pretty dry.

So there were probably a lot of little pockets of air for the flame to feed off of.

These various factors probably explain what happened next.

Every time we had seen a cigarette lit, on TV or by any adult we knew, they always settled into a glowing ember on the end of the cigarette.  This, however, resembled the pictures we saw on the news of forest fires.  The flame grew immediately to at least twice the size that it had been on the end of the match, and since Ronnie was sucking in on the other end, the flame followed the air that was being sucked away right towards Ronnie’s face.  I saw his eyes grow to the size of silver dollars through the smoke and flames as the cigarette got shorter and shorter.  Ashes were falling away and floating all around us.  Just as the flame, which grew as it traveled the length of the cigarette, started to singe his eyebrows he threw it down and started coughing.   I thought he was going to throw up.  This wasn’t gonna be just a hairball either.  While he coughed I stomped out the remains of the cigarette.

When he finally quit coughing and looked up at me I saw a fine gray layer of ash on his blond eyebrows.

“So how was it?”  I asked.

“Really bad!” he said in a very raspy tone, just before he started coughing again.

“I think it burned your eyebrows!  Let me see, I’ve never seen burnt hair before!  Wow!  Hey what happened to your eyes, they’re all red!”

“I don’t know.”

“You better go to the bathroom and wash off your face and eyebrows or your mom will find out what happened.”

“Yeah.”

I went in the house with him and made sure his mom wasn’t near the bathroom.  The coast was clear and he made it without incident.  He washed up and came out again looking none the worse for wear.  I figured watching him was enough, and I decided smoking just wasn’t for me.  Ronnie figured out the same thing.  Whenever he walked into a room where someone was smoking after that he always left the room looking a little “green around the gills” as they say.

I suppose I would have to include a subsection in my “Stupid Things” book called “Stupid Things I Got My Friends to Do”.  It would be a strong argument against the concept of peer socialization, and would probably change the course of history.

©Dan Bode 1998

2014-03-08 The Man I Am Not

2014-03-08  The Man I Am Not  - Part 1

When I started this piece a little over a year ago, I was in a much different place than I am now.  Regardless of where I was then I found that a lot of what I wrote is still valuable to me in terms of my progression in this journey to become someone who can love more completely and honestly than I ever thought possible.  My life is about to change again in a wonderfully drastic way.  A year makes a big difference.  I decided to call this Part 1 because as I incorporate “new pieces” into a “new One” I will have much more to say.  So stay tuned….

__________________________________________________________________________

Life is a process of self-discovery.

Some of these discoveries are welcome, and some not so much.  There are times, in fact, that I wish I could just not discover anything new about myself because it’s just so tiresome sometimes.  Mostly I’m discovering things I don’t like and want to fix, but frankly I’m just too lazy to make the effort.  I just don’t feel like it.  Most of the people I know think pretty highly of me, but I know that I don’t deserve their high regard.  I know my sins, and they leave me severely lacking.  I’m tired of my internal desire to live up to everyone else’s image of me.  This is all my own doing of course.  I realize that no one else really thinks about what I do very much at all.  We each have our own lives and certain close family members think of us more often, but for the most part we think of those the most who are within easy mental/emotional reach.  The ones who have a more consistent emotional and spiritual presence for us.

These are the ones we miss.  This is human nature, and that nature limits our capacity and ability to express our feelings and desires to others.  Because the reality is that no matter how many connections I have on social media I am truly only capable of being effectively present in a limited number of lives.

I discovered how much I take for granted, and how much I assume to be true.  I am being painfully truthful when I say that I most often feel the greatest impact of someone’s life on mine more by their absence than their presence.  I am so well and thoroughly loved and supported by those in my life that I have become comfortable in that place.  I would know if someone were no longer there because it would change my life.  I too often think of others in terms of how they affect me rather than the effect I have on them.  That is how I define taking someone for granted, and I have a difficult time thinking of a worse feeling regarding myself. 

But I’m also aware of just how undeserving I am of all the respect and affection I have among my family and friends, and that is how I define Grace: Love completely undeserved.  I have a difficult time thinking of a better feeling regarding myself.

I discovered that I selectively cease to question.  There are some things I simply don’t want to know.  To acknowledge the truth about something regarding myself requires me to act on it.  If I don’t it niggles at the back end of my existence until I simply can’t tolerate it anymore. 

I discovered that I, a man who knows the value and need for commitment, am actually afraid of commitment.  Oh, how I hate to admit this to myself.  The fact is that I fear it because I don’t think I will find someone who can match that commitment, and that is an extremely self-centered thought.  Who am I to judge the quality of another person’s heart?  This requires a “fore-ordained” commitment to the unknown, because you can’t get that kind of commitment until you’re willing to give it first and that takes time.  And now I’ve discovered that I actually have all the time I need.  There is no need for hurry in this.  It may actually never happen, and I think I’m surprisingly ok with that. 

I am a fool who is well and greatly, and wholly undeservedly, loved. 

One of my favorite quotes of all time is this:

"In your weakest moment you are powerfully loved. That love overpowers all that you are not.  It overwhelms all your inadequacy.  It empowers you to stand up on the inside.  Love makes us invincible, unbeatable.  Our heart becomes a fortress.  Only God can do that...turn a weak place into something impregnable." - Graham Cooke

So maybe what I really need to develop is a system of walls with an “open door” policy.  I will welcome you in to see my heart.  If you like it stay, if not go.  If you hurt me one or more of those doors will close behind you on the way out.  You will do the same for me, and if I make the choice to walk through your doors I will be as careful as possible with what you offer.

It’s true, I think, that most of the time in our personal relationships all we really want is to be in a place with someone where the thought is simply, “Don’t hurt me.”, but we fear to lose what relationship we may have so we don’t say, “Accept me.”, and then we lose the natural progression to a level of relationship where we find ourselves capable of saying, “Love me.”  We are afraid to acknowledge that our love is largely conditional, yet we long for the unconditional so much more.  We fear being ourselves in front of someone else.

Love requires risk, but it first requires knowing what I risk.  It requires that I understand what my needs really are as opposed to what I think they are.  It’s easy to keep my conception of my needs rooted in the physical, which are more easily satisfied in the short term, rather than the emotional and spiritual which are more difficult.  It takes time to understand the roots of my discontent, and therefore my satisfaction.  It takes time to figure out what I’m really seeking.

It requires that I dismantle myself.

I have to reduce myself to my most basic components and then rebuild according to what I want to keep rather than what I had before.  I can’t keep doing the same things just because “that’s the way it’s always been done”.  And it clearly needs to be based on what I want to keep not on what someone else feels I should keep.  If it isn’t my choice I’ll become bitter, and there will be no joy. 

What it comes down to is that I have choices.  I get to pick what stays and what goes, and I need to be honest with myself enough to make sure those choices lead up and out of the pits I dig for myself.  It's pretty easy to get comfortable wallowing in the mud.

  ©Dan Bode 2015

 

Something to Believe In

A few years ago it became something of a tradition for me to dress up in a Santa suit and make an appearance at my grandchildren’s homes. 

I like it.  A lot more than I expected.  A lot of preparation goes into this event.  I have to change my appearance enough so they don’t recognize me.  

It’s a lot of work to become someone else to someone who knows you so well.  

A legend has even developed to explain the resemblance between Santa and Papa.  You see, Santa was going through Denmark, where my grandparents came from, one year many years ago.  He met and married a woman in my family, and so Santa and I are distant cousins which is why we look somewhat like each other.  It’s a family resemblance.  Which of course means that the kids are actually related to Santa.  I don’t think they’ve started bragging to their friends about it yet.  And I’m still not exactly sure how I’m going to explain the reality of Santa to them when they reach that point.  I have to acknowledge the fact that I have been lying to my grandchildren.  

Still working that one out.

I walk into the Christmas party and the eyes of every child are locked on to Santa with laser precision.    I even wore the suit to my church’s Harvest Carnival at Halloween one year.  I didn’t know what to dress up as, but then I realized I had this costume just sitting there waiting to be worn so I used it.  It was incredibly fun to see the looks on every kid’s face when they saw Santa at Halloween.  They all seemed to be in varying states of amazement, and the fact that I knew many of the kids there and called them by name made it almost epic. Kids across the street would point and yell, “Mom look!  IT’S SANTA!!” 

As I walked around with a Santa gift bag full of candy slung over my shoulder every child who saw me would simply stop and stare.  Sometimes their jaws would drop.  I would stop and open my bag and let them take some candy and talk to them for a minute.  Even as they reached into the bag to get their candy their wide eyes never left my face.  They were convinced that I was not a man in a costume even though it was Halloween.  

They believed I was Santa.

I made some discoveries about why I like it so much. 

When I walk into a room full of kids and they see Santa they really want to believe it’s Him!  They want Santa to be in that room, and they want to know that he knows them.  They want him to be real.

And this is essentially why I like it so much myself.  When a child looks at you with utter faith and devotion to who they believe you are it makes you want to do almost anything to fulfill their wishes. 

The dangerous part is that, for a little while at least, for just a moment, it makes you believe you actually can.

And there’s the rub.  Belief is a powerful thing, but when it’s directed at me I know I could never live up to the awe that I see in their eyes. 

We have a need to believe in someone.  We were created that way.  Without a focus for our belief we become aimless, weary, and despairing.  With nothing to believe in we die.

God knows this.  It’s why we have Christmas in the first place; to prove that God is real.  To know that He can live up to our faith, and actually exceed the limits of that faith.  To be completely and overwhelmingly real. 

And just to make sure we understand that reality He sends His son.  The flesh, blood, and bones of God.  Human like me, but worthy of my faith, my belief.  One who sees the darkest parts of my soul and does not shudder, who loves me nonetheless. The one who considers my life a gift to Him should I choose to give it, rather than the wreck I think I’ve made of it.

Believing and being believed in have two entirely different effects in our lives.

Believing in something is completely worthless.  There is no physical object worthy of our belief or devotion.  I might be devoted to a concept embodied by the object, but my belief cannot be in the object itself.  Its only value is in the amount of space it occupies.

Believing in someone is completely different.  A person can return your belief.  They can believe in you.  If you show them the truth of who you are then others can believe in you appropriately. 

There are times though, when I believe too much about someone.  I believe beyond their ability to fulfill my beliefs about them even though they have been honest about their abilities.  And sometimes they have presented a different face to me that belies the reality of who they are – this happens more often than I like.  It takes time to know a person well enough to believe in them.  A lot of time.

On the flip side, how does all this apply to myself? Am I showing others my true self?  Am I giving them enough of me for them to make an honest assessment of what they should believe about me?

Then there is the added dimension of whether or not I do, or should, accept what others believe about me.  Do they know me well enough to speak to this area of my life?  Can I be objective enough to hear if there is any truth to what they say, good or bad?  Does what they tell me serve me, or themselves?  Is it truth, or simply manipulation?  What kind of effect do they have on the lives of others to use as a litmus?

One of the main problems in our society is that we so often try to live up to someone else’s idea of who we are, or should be.  No one else’s opinion is ever objective, and rarely consistent.  I have seen so many relationships destroyed in the passion of a moment’s anger or misconception.  Few of us take the opportunity to look at the whole of the person we have known for a long time, and see what was said in the context of their humanity; their own faults and weaknesses. 

We have a need to believe in someone greater than ourselves.  

Think about this in realistic terms.  How would you feel if you had a friend who was rich and powerful, and neither of those terms applied to you?  Now think of how you would feel knowing that your friend had such a great love for you that he would give anything he had to care for you or protect you.  Most of us dream of being rich and powerful ourselves at some point in our lives, but we are also aware (usually) that we might not actually handle having all that very well.  I would likely squander much of it.  So, the idea of someone else having the responsibility for all of that is very appealing.  You know there is someone who always has your back, and has the ability to care for you in the right way.  When I was a child I knew that if an older kid picked on me one of my older brothers would “take care of the problem” if it became necessary.  The perpetrator would not go unscathed.  When I know someone who needs help with something that I can’t personally help them with I love to be able to say, “I know somebody who can help with that.”  But the fact is that I do bear responsibility for my own life, and the actions contained therein.  It’s also true that I am prone to failure, and I am just as responsible for that.

That’s why I believe in God.  I choose to believe in Him, because I want to believe what He believes about me.  He says He loves me.  He knows everything about me and does not waver in His attitude toward me.  He believes I can be better than I am, and because He sees me as pure as I was originally created to be I am inspired to be better than I am.  That’s not to say I am always successful.  I fail on a regular basis, but there’s always a better standard for me to return to.

When I was young and my parents had died, in the absence of an earthly father I eventually came to allow God to take over that role in my life, and I found Him to be a much different father than what I had expected of Him.  I found a father who has no faults who knows my shortcomings and loves me nonetheless.  

So this is the kind of man I now strive to be; in my case not to love others in spite of their shortcomings, but rather in spite of my own.  

My success in this varies greatly, but I keep trying because, honestly, there are a few people out there who really try my patience.  Particularly those who bully, threaten, or abuse others.  For them I just want to say “Back off, because you better believe Santa Claus is coming to town!”

My daughter told me a story of something that happened with my granddaughter Chloe a few months ago.  I’m not sure I remember all the details correctly but this is the main gist of it.  They had gone to a park so Chloe and one of her friends could play.  While they were there some older boys started to chase them.  Chloe was a little scared of them as they persisted, and so she stopped and turned to them and yelled what she seemed to think was the most powerful threat she could think of at the time; “You better stop, my Papa is DAN BODE!”  Apparently they left her alone after that.  I don’t know any of the kids there, and I was not present, but apparently she invoked my name with enough authority that they had second thoughts. 

I don’t believe in Santa the way I once did, but I still want my grandkids to, because then they unknowingly believe in me.  The thing is – they already believe in me.  They were raised with the knowledge that Papa has a special relationship with them, and they have lived according to that knowledge. 

The reason I believe in Christmas is because I believe in Easter.  Christ came into this world with an incredible lasting impact.  He left it with an even greater one.

No one else died to make a point of it.  Not on purpose. 

That’s really enough for me to place my trust and my belief in Him. 

©Dan Bode 2014

Graceful Words

There is crimson ink with which the words of my life are written.
It is a Grace etched on paper filled with imperfections,
Despite which the words are clearly read.
In the silence of my night the scratch of the nib on the page of existence
And the rustle of the turning page
Bring me solace.
The book is thick
Merely one volume of many,
The words written small and tightly packed,
So much to say,
Yet with all the time necessary to say it,
If I would.
Many are never spoken,
Not allowed to see the light of day,
But there nonetheless
Etched permanently into my life,
But not always read.
Some are studiously ignored in my attempts to gain control,
But then an unseen hand turns a page,
Erases a line,
Closes a cover,
Starts a new chapter with fresh ink/blood/Grace
And we Begin Again.

©Dan Bode 2014

Suicide and Choice

A few days after Robin Williams killed himself a guy named Matt Walsh wrote a blog post about his feelings and opinions regarding what happened titled: “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice”.  It was shared by a lot of people on social media and there were many and varied responses to the post.  A friend of mine shared it on his page and there were a lot of comments to it that led me to respond to it based on my own experiences as a “survivor”.  I commented with some basic thoughts, but I wanted to expand on it more so I added some more thoughts and am posting it here.  Everyone has something to say, and for the most part I feel like telling everyone that really when it comes right down to it: your opinion and mine is completely irrelevant.  But no one believes that anyway.  We all want to think that what we have to say Must Be Heard!  So, in that spirit, here is my response:

I usually don't get into discussions like this but I feel the need to say something here. My father committed suicide when I was 14. My wife committed suicide 2 1/2 years ago. I'm a former (and probably returning) Marriage and Family Therapist. I also read the article.
He does specifically say that he has dealt with this in his own life for a long time which people seem to keep ignoring in their comments for whatever reason.  I do think he would have been better off waiting for a little while to post it when the communal pain has lessened somewhat and we process it better, but that’s just my opinion.
Depression has clinical, emotional and spiritual dimensions that must be dealt with together.  Drugs have a place in the process but are not the end all.  There has to be therapy and network of friends to sustain them. There are some problems with this.  You can’t force someone to make and maintain contact with other people.  This is their choice.  If you call someone they choose to answer the phone or not.  If you go to their house they choose to answer the door or not.   We all make bad choices in our lives, but most of the time those choices do not have lethal consequences.
Clinical depression is more than just a feeling that we can talk ourselves out of.  There is more than one dimension to it, but we often refuse to look at from a multi-dimensional standpoint.  Our medical society wants to throw drugs at the problem and get us out the door.  Our spiritual society has, until recently, treated it as a purely spiritual issue that can be “prayed away”.  It can’t be treated one dimensionaly.  There’s a book that was written several years ago titled, “Why do Christians Shoot Their Wounded”.  It talks about this issue in detail.  Chemical imbalances by nature are an actual physical issue, but we tend to treat it as a more purely spiritual issue because it is expressed in our behavior and the things we say while under the influence of the imbalance.
The people left behind to deal with the aftermath WILL feel guilt.  It’s a given.  They will always have to deal with it and ultimately come to their own conclusion that the choice of the person who died was only his/her responsibility.  Not theirs.  I know this to be true.  To say they didn’t have a choice takes the responsibility for that choice off of the suicidal persons shoulders and leaves others thinking that there’s no hope – that they can’t make a better choice.  It also inhibits those left behind from getting the help they need because they always feel if they had just done one thing different everything would be better.
Everyone wants to do something, or blame something, or give responsibility to something other than the one responsible: the suicidal person.  We can’t have it both ways.  We can’t deny the horror of the act, and say it wasn’t his fault.  The fault lies with no one else.  The truth is it just makes us feel better to say it one way rather than the other.
Robin Williams was a good man who had an incredible impact on the world.  Because he made a bad choice does not make him a bad person.  His final choice does not negate what he did in life.  We don’t want to say anything bad about the dead so we don’t speak honestly about the issues that death reveals to us.  Our concerns are in reality concerns about what we have lost.  Denying the responsibility of his choice doesn’t make him better/worse.  It doesn’t make him less loved.  It does make it supremely more difficult for those left behind to deal with the real world impact of what he did.  They will be victimized by their own thoughts.  “What could I have done differently?” “Why didn’t I say this instead of that?” “Why wasn’t I there?”
The fact is, they make a choice, and they will find a way to carry it out.  The fact is the truly suicidal person is not concerned with what will happen to those they leave behind.  I know this to be true as well.  They are, at that point, truly selfish in their choice.  It might possibly be the only truly selfish moment of their lives if they are someone who gave of themselves so much in their lifetime.  They are simply unable to see past their own pain in that moment.  There are many people who are truly noticed as much by their absence as by their presence.  The clinically depressed person often hides the signs of their depression very well.  They are consciously aware of what they are doing and putting a different face on for everyone else to see.  Robin Williams was one of the few who were very open about it, and the public was then able to live with the illusion that he was taking care of it.  This makes the fact that he made this choice that much harder to accept.  Because he was so greatly admired and selfless in life no one wants to speak the truth and admit that he was, in that moment, selfish.  We are often upset when someone speaks the truth that doesn’t match our perception of someone else.
His family will go through a great deal emotionally in the coming years. They know he loved them completely.  But he still killed himself.  The anger and resentment they will eventually have to deal with will be hell for them, because it’s almost impossible to reconcile love and suicide.  And do you know the sad part of this? There are multitudes of people out there in social media that will be angry at them for feeling that way. People who didn’t know him or his family who think they know better.  To those I would say now in a pre-emptive statement:

Shut. The. Hell. Up.  Leave them alone.  They don’t need you to help them grieve.  They have enough of their own and will choose those who will help them get through it themselves.

And finally, remember that Matt Walsh writes a blog.  It’s one person’s opinion.  Just as is my blog that you’re reading now.  You can accept it or not, but no one is asking you to live your life by what he says.  He says some good stuff and some not so good stuff.  He’s as human as you and I.  As human as us and Robin Williams.  He seems to be speaking from his personal experience with this issue, and it sounds like a pretty raw knee jerk reaction incited by his own pain in dealing with the issue.
What you do with it is your choice.
©Dan Bode 2014

The Un-obligatory Father's Day Post

I am writing this for Father's Day, but not because it's Father's Day.  It's not something I feel I have to do.  It's something I want to do.

I'm writing it because Father's Day simply reminded me of what it has been like for me to be a father.  I've said before that any good that I accomplished as a father is not due to my own abilities.  If I have ever been good as a father, it is only because of the quality of my children.  I could not have asked for two better daughters than the two I have.  The women they have become are far beyond what I would have been able to imagine on my own.  I am forever grateful that they were given into my care.

I always think of my own father at this time.  Actually, I think of him quite often.  I have so many questions for him.  My father killed himself when I was 15, and my ability to get any answers was effectively stifled.  I would have wanted to know what it was like for him when he first became a father.  Mostly I would have liked for my daughters to have known him. 

When I look back at my life with my father I have to acknowledge that despite all of his faults, he was, ultimately, a good father to me.  In saying that I have to qualify it with the fact that I am the youngest of six children, and my siblings experiences with my father were very different than mine. 

My father was an alcoholic.  The last time I saw him he was drunk.  And yet, despite this, to me he was a good father.  My memories of life with him were generally positive.  He was a firm disciplinarian which I can attest to having felt the thickness of the calluses on his hands when he spanked me on my bare backside.  I also have to admit that I earned every spanking I got.  The other times when I had his attention were when he played catch with me, or showed me what he was working on in the garage whether it was a car or carpentry project.  I remember distinctly one time when he was making some bookends for my sister Diane, and he asked my opinion on how the pieces of wood looked when arranged in a certain way.  "I like them that way." I said.  He looked at me and smiled and said, "Ok.  Then that's the way I'll do it."  In that one moment of my childhood I felt completely valued by him.

I have to say though, that despite how his life ended, he was a good father to me, and I believe this is due in large part to my older siblings.  Their life with my father was very different than mine.  Their experiences with his alcoholism and controlling personality were far more direct, and frequent, than mine ever were.   I believe very firmly that my mother, my brothers and my sisters taught him to be a good father.  They took upon themselves all the pain in their relationships with him, and in effect, extended a Grace that covered me before I was even born.  They protected me so that I might have the good father that they missed.  They made him a good father for me.

And even beyond that, when I went to live at different times with my brother Bill, and later with my sister Diane, they became the parents I needed which is a debt I can never adequately repay, and one they would never ask me to.

For this I will always be grateful to all of them. 

In addition to all this I learned that God directly replaced my father's presence with His own when I finally chose to listen to Him.  This was the single most important choice I have made in my life, and I have never regretted it. 

Now I look at my own daughters, and I will never be able to express how grateful I am to be their father.  With all of the pain and sorrow inflicted upon them in their lives they still choose to love me.  And again that Grace is extended to me, and it makes my life more than worth it.

I am blessed beyond measure.

So, on Father's Day, the only gift I will ever want is to know that my children actually want to be near me.  I could ask for nothing better, nor desire anything more.

To my daughters, Jennifer and Kaytie, thank you for letting me be your father.

©Dan Bode 2014