Category Archives: Family

My Mom is Awesome!

DSC_0184“All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” –Abraham Lincoln

Hello friend,

Happy Mother’s Day! Last year at this time, I actually got to spend the weekend with my amazing Mom. I admit that I haven’t always given Mother’s Day its just due as a holiday—often lumping it in with “greeting card holidays” like Valentine’s Day, which I mostly ignore—but having that time with my Mom on a day made just for her was pretty darn cool. Maybe I can appreciate it more now that I am a parent, or maybe it just hits home a bit more now that we are both old enough to realize that these earthly lives don’t go on forever. In any case, Mother’s Day is important to me now.

Holidays and birthdays, for me, have kind of taken on the role of “good excuse to let someone know how much I care”. I know that it is pretty lame that I don’t have the guts and/or don’t make the time to do that often enough in my day-to-day interactions, but that is where I am right now. This is why I have come to appreciate these holidays: I need the excuse to share my feelings. These days are helping me out.

So, in honor of Mother’s Day, here are some of the reasons I love my Mom so much:

  • I love my Mom because she birthed me and raised me. That may sound obvious, but really, having now witnessed a couple of births in person, I know that every mother, no matter what they did afterward, deserves a thank you. And to think, that is the easy part! Raising kids is hard!!! My kids are absolutely fabulous and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world, but raising them is still the most taxing thing ever, too. So I am so grateful to my Mom for just hanging in there with me through it all. I didn’t know what a trooper she was—and I may not fully know until these guys go through the teenage stuff—but I know enough now to say she has my utmost respect.
  • I love my Mom because she was crazy enough to have five of us. Who does that? Seriously, I have two kids and can hardly see straight. How did she turn out five of us—four, including me, in very rapid succession—and keep it all together? As many times as I have probed her and other parents of big broods to figure it out, I simply cannot wrap my mind around the idea. But my Mom pulled it off. Even though I am stopping at two, I am so glad I had my many siblings all along the way. Amazingly, we actually still like and respect each other. My Mom is a wonder!
  • I love my Mom because I have always been her little boy. I admit it, I have always been a Momma’s boy. I was the fourth kid, and my little sister didn’t come along for seven years after me. I don’t know if that explains it, or if she just somehow knew I had a unique path that required her special support, but she always provided it. Even at this age and with me about twice her size, she has a way of making me feel like her special little boy. I love that.
  • I love my Mom because we have been lifelong roadtrip partners. In my previous post “Roadtrip Down Memory Lane”, I shared with you how my Mom would throw us five kids, a cooler of soda, and an Alabama cassette into our van and trek across the country. Those trips were amazing, but they were just the beginning. She toted—“tolerated” is probably more accurate—my friends and I around to every little town that had a Summer tennis tournament. Even as an adult, she and I have covered this great country on adventures up and down both coasts and seemingly everywhere in between. She even made it through an epic day in which I dragged her to every possible site in Rome, finally limping up the Spanish Steps in the dark of night. We have shared a lot of beautiful miles.
  • I love my Mom because she shows me how to be a good spouse. After all these years, I am pretty sure my Dad realizes that he landed a good one. I learned the most from my Mom in her most trying times as a wife. When I was wondering, “How in the world is she holding up and hanging in?” she was a rock. She never wavered. I am still amazed by that, and I always return to it whenever I have a “Darn, marriage is hard work!” moment.
  • I love my Mom because she is a fabulous grandmother. My kids—and all her other grandkids, really—totally adore my Mom. She gets right down to the level of whoever she is playing with and really digs in. She snuggles with the infants, plays on the floor with my kids, and reads novels aloud to my teenage nieces (yes, at their request!). I am in awe of how connected she is to each of them. She is the grandma version of the kind of grandpa I want to be.
  • I love my Mom because she showed me how to be the adult child at the parents’ end. My Mom’s mother—my sweet Grandma Jeanne—had a long bout with cancer and needed a lot of care. In what had to be the toughest thing for her to witness, she sucked it up and did it all. I am sitting here bawling as I think about having to do that for her one day. I can only hope I do half as well. She then spent so many more happy years with her father, becoming his best friend and constant source of support, even as his mind began to betray him. She was, again, the rock, right to the very end. How lucky my grandparents were to have her.
  • I love my Mom because she has been, through it all, everything I would want in a best friend. In life, you want someone who is going to love you no matter what. You want someone who is proud of you even when you aren’t proud of yourself. You want someone you can have a great time with. You want someone who will tell you their Truth. And you want someone to be your biggest fan. My Mom is all of that to me. I love her without end.

This morning, as has become her habit in recent years on Mother’s Day, she sent an email to me and my siblings. It was titled “Your Mom”, and here is how it went:

Ahh, it’s my favorite day of the year once again! And now that I say that I know it’s not totally true, my favorite days are when I actually get to see you! But today is the day that I feel like I can take some of the credit for the 5 greatest people the world has ever seen and I do mean that! I know that without God taking care of you every day and your Dad’s help I couldn’t say that and I am just so very thankful that I can. I really couldn’t be more proud of each of you than I already am for everything you have accomplished and everything you have become. You truly are the 5 greatest people I know and you are raising 14 of the greatest kids there are anywhere. Mom or Dad, you should be as proud of yourselves as I am of you for doing such a great job and having so much fun with all of them. Nothing makes me more proud of you than to see what great parents you are and the love you have for your children….that really is the most important thing in your life as I know you can see even now. They are and always will be the greatest source of joy to you even in the difficult times so treasure each moment…it doesn’t come again. Thank you all for making my life so special…..you will only know how much I love you as you experience your own love for your children.

All my love, Your very blessed Mom 

Oh yeah, I love my Mom for that letter, too.

How about you? Open up your journal—or better yet, a letter or the phone line or her front door—and write down all the reasons you love your mother. If you are anything like me, it will be a tear-filled entry, but, trust me, well worth your time. I bet your Mom would think so, too! Leave me a reply and let me know: how awesome is your Mom?

You are loved,

William

The Soundtrack of My Life

DSC_0029“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” –Plato

Hello friend,

This morning at my gym class, the instructor’s super-techno dance mix included a mash-up of Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ classic “I Love Rock ‘n Roll”. After getting over my initial disgust that they had butchered this all-time rock anthem with a computer-generated dance beat, I was instantly swept back in time to July 19, 1982. I was nine years old, and my parents—in a moment of highly questionable judgment—let me, my siblings, and my cousins go unsupervised to a rock concert at the North Dakota State Fair. It was none other than Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, and “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” had just blown up. I was mesmerized by the whole experience, but especially hearing her sing that song live. It was a night etched in my mind forever.

That is how it so often is with the signature moments in our lives: a song is attached. So, when we think back on our history, the telling of our lives emerges from our minds like a movie, complete with a soundtrack. The music playing while we hung out with our friends, stayed up late, kissed the girl, got dumped by the girl, won the game, rebelled, danced, roadtripped, celebrated, contemplated, got married, rocked the baby, and on and on. For most of us, the music tells the story for us. Play the soundtrack, and we could “set adrift on memory bliss.”

My life is no different. When I look through my piles of CDs or through my iPod, it is like my life is flashing in front of my eyes. So, in roughly chronological order, here is the Soundtrack of My Life:

  1. “Another One Bites The Dust”—Queen. This one starts the album, because I remember listening to the 45—yes, a record—of this in my room over and over with my brothers and neighbors. The other Queen anthems—“We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You”—absolutely belong on this playlist as well, but I will lump them into this one slot so I can sneak other songs in (IT IS SO HARD TO KEEP THIS ALBUM SHORT!!!)
  2. “Take It On The Run”—REO Speedwagon. This is another vinyl memory. I didn’t own it, but I remember staying up late at my (older) cousins’ cabin when I was a kid listening to this over and over, dancing around on the beds and feeling way older than my 8 years.
  3. “You May Be Right”—Billy Joel. This is my transition to 8-track. I could not get enough of the sound of that shattering glass followed immediately by the revved-up opening bars of this song to start the “Glass Houses” album. Instant adrenaline!
  4. “Greased Lightning”—Danny Zuko (John Travolta) & the T-Birds. I have seen “Grease” a thousand times and know all the songs, but this one sticks out so vividly because I remember my brothers and neighbor boys and I standing on our basement sofas performing this song—with all the dance moves, of course—like we were the T-Birds as we watched it repeatedly. (I wish that my parents had recorded more of our nonsense, because I would die to see this stuff now.) Go greased lightning!
  5. “Roll On”—Alabama. This was the signature roadtrip song for the crosscountry family misadventures (see my post “Roadtrip Down Memory Lane”), since my dear mother only ever brought one cassette for the entire trip. I didn’t know any better. Roll on!
  6. “I Love Rock ‘n Roll”—Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Enough said.
  7. “Cum On Feel The Noize”—Quiet Riot. I have to include this not just because it is one of those quintessential 1980’s rock anthems that got played at every school dance—and still charges me up to hear it—but because of how it fits with my Joan Jett story. You see, at that first concert for 9-year-old me, the warm-up band for Joan Jett was a totally unknown band named Quiet Riot, and they blew us away with all of the material from the “Metal Health” album that would become popular a year or so later. At nine years old, I reached the peak of my interest in metal—ha!
  8. “Beat It”—Michael Jackson. I am such a child of the early days of MTV, and I could easily produce a 50-song soundtrack of songs that influenced me from those early years of the network (you don’t know how it pains me to leave off this list The J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold”, which threw our whole house into a frenzy every time it got played). Michael Jackson’s brilliance as a performer was perfect for the music video medium, and I was totally captivated. Much like some of the others on this list, “Beat It” is my representative for all of the amazing stuff that Michael put out in those early years, including “Thriller”. When I hear the song now, the dance-off video leaps onto the screen of my mind.
  9. “Mony Mony”—Billy Idol. I can’t even really claim to like this song, but when I think of high school dances, this song is the first thing that comes to my mind. It was like we all had permission to shout the F-word, and what more does a teenager want? So we shouted!
  10. “You’re The Inspiration”—Chicago. Roadtripping with my best friend to tennis tournaments, to Chicago (where we actually saw the band Chicago play), and across the American Rockies. The “Greatest Hits 1982-1989” album logged a lot of miles. Lots of sappy love songs—right up my alley.
  11. “U Can’t Touch This”—MC Hammer. I remember riding in a school bus with a high school girls’ tennis team with this song blaring, and each time it would come to the right parts, we would all shout, “STOP! HAMMER TIME!!!” Pure, unadulterated fun.
  12. “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You”—Michael Bolton. I am probably supposed to be embarrassed that I was a huge Bolton fan in my late high school-early college years. I remember when my mom first got this cassette before we left for a long roadtrip to a tennis tournament. By the time we returned, I was sold. This song made it on many a mix tape.
  13. “Summertime”—DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. This was the Summer song for 1991, the year I graduated high school. I hear this and think of my buddies. That was our time together, and we soaked it up. After all of these years, I would still lay down in traffic for those guys.
  14. “Walking In Memphis”—Marc Cohn. My favorite. I also found this song in the Summer of ’91, and I include it not so much from one memory at that time but for how deeply it moved me—and moves me to this day. Though he is widely considered a one-hit wonder for this song, Cohn sunk deep into my soul with this entire album, and he has remained foremost in my heart ever since. Like some of the others, this spot on my list really represents a lot of songs, including “True Companion”, which played in my wedding. I have sung Marc’s songs to soothe my crying kids on their tough nights, and to soothe myself in the best and worst times of my life. This song, which is about a spiritual experience for him, has become a spiritual experience for me.
  15. “I Go To Work”—Kool Moe Dee. This was my “pump-up song” to get ready for intramural basketball games in college. I love this whole album, but this song completely brings it. This is good rap. Old school like the old school!
  16. “Jessie”—Joshua Kadison. This song–and all of the others from his “Painted Desert Serenade” album–is so much about singing my lungs out on solo roadtrips across the land. I love Kadison’s storytelling, and despite a short career, he has always been on my short list of favorites. A wonderful memory is seeing him play live at the House of Blues in Los Angeles.
  17. “Round Here”—Counting Crows. Their debut song “Mr. Jones” was so overplayed that I didn’t want to get the “August and Everything After” album, but someone dear to me insisted. This is the first song, and I was completely shaken by it. I bought it in Washington, DC September of 1994, and it played in my Discman the entire Autumn and Winter I spent there and New York City. It has played on every roadtrip since, and never fails to move me. I love this song, this album, this band.
  18. “Mystery”—Indigo Girls. Someone randomly gave me this CD, “Swamp Ophelia”, in L.A.; she didn’t know why she had it and didn’t want it. This is the epitome of “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” I had never heard Indigo Girls before that, but they didn’t leave my CD player for months afterward. This song in particular captured my soul from the beginning, and it has become another roadtrip staple for me. This band is on my short list, and the song is amazing live.
  19. “The Promise”—Tracy Chapman. I walked down the aisle of my wedding to this song. Though she had put out a number of albums before “New Beginning”, this album is where I discovered Tracy on a camping trip to Montana. I played it nonstop, and this song always hit me right in the heart. It led to a huge collection of her music and eventually hearing the song live in concert while holding hands with my wife. A pretty cool relationship moment.
  20. “No One”—Alicia Keys. This one is for my daughter. When she was an infant and having a crying fit that could not be settled, this song always came to my rescue. I would put the iPod dock on REPEAT mode with “No One” and sway through the kitchen with her in my arms. It did the trick every time. I love the song anyway, but knowing that my little angel loved it, too, gave it an extra special place in my heart.

There you have it: the soundtrack of my life. As I said, I can think of dozens of songs that are deserving of a spot on the playlist, and it pains me to leave them off. But this list seems right for my journey.

How about your journey? What is on the playlist of your life? Get out your journal and your CDs/cassettes/albums/iPod. Let yourself be swept away. What images come up with the songs? Do you remember the good and the bad times equally? How many images are about love? Who do the songs make you miss the most? Which is your favorite? Do you have, like me, such clear images of the songs of childhood, but fewer standouts from more recent years? I hope you have as much fun dancing through your memories as I did in making my list. Leave me a reply and let me know: what’s on the soundtrack of your life?

Sing out loud & dance like nobody’s watching,

William

Roadtrip Down Memory Lane

DSC_0674Hello friend,

Picture the scene: a campground in Middle of Nowhere, USA.  It is the dead of night, and at one particular site, there is no tent or camper set up, and no evidence of a campfire.  No marshmallows.  No lawn chairs.  No clothesline.  Just a solitary maroon van with North Dakota license plates.  But wait!  What is that thing on the picnic table????  The remains of a meal?  A table cloth?  Nope!  That’s just my brother.  Sleeping.  Welcome to the Rutten Family roadtrip, early 1980s-style!

With the coming of Spring Break this week and its many possibilities, I have grown increasingly nostalgic about my family trips in the good-old days of my youth.  I am sure I have, by necessity, blocked a lot out, but I cannot help but grin and giggle every time I think of our adventures in that maroon van (and the navy blue one that came before it).

What, you might ask, was going on inside that van to cause my brother to choose the cold comforts of a picnic table?  Well, let’s see.  In the back section, with the bench “sofa” folded down, you could probably find my snoring Mom snuggled up tight with my two sisters (my little sister could not sleep unless she was up against another body—tight against).  In the middle row, where there were two bucket seats that swiveled and reclined, you could find one of my brothers snoozing with his no-sock-wearing stinky feet resting on the cooler that was chock-full of all of the nutrition my Mom could pack for such a cross-country adventure (read: Mello Yello and Coke).  I was usually wrenched in the “aisle”—I use the term loosely—between the two seats or in the front passenger seat with the chair reclined back into the middle row—uncomfortably close to my brother’s aforementioned stankfeet—and my own feet up on the nearby footrest, I mean dashboard.

So, what were my other brother’s options?  He could go with the driver’s seat with all of its spacious amenities, or he could sit in the other middle row seat, next to Stankyfoot and with me either under his feet or reclining my chair into his lap.  I am guessing that by this point you are seeing his wisdom in forgoing those lavish comforts for a night in favor of the splintered wood and rusty nails of the picnic table.  But just for a night.  The next few nights, in the next few campgrounds in Podunk and Timbuktu, it would thunderstorm, and nobody goes out in a thunderstorm (right, Mom?).

That was us, night after night as we traversed this great country in that van.  Every couple of years, my Dad would have a big convention to go to in the Summer for his job.  One year it was Nashville, another time Boston.  That was big stuff for a kid from North Dakota, so I was thrilled to pile into the van several days before the convention with my brothers, sisters, and Mom.  And off we would go, just the six of us, hopped up on the Mello Yello (for the kids) and Coke (for my Mom).

Where was my Dad?  Good question.  My old man was no fool.  He was not about to sleep in a car with six other people night after night.  No sir.  While we were schlepping our way across the land from campground to campground and hitting the nearest waterslide or historic site, he was hanging out at home until the day the convention started.  Then he would hop on a plane and meet up with us at the airport.  Same thing on the return.  He would fly home and dine on a nice steak while we were eating McDonald’s for every meal—and I mean every meal—and sleeping on top of each other.  A smart man, my Dad!

But how about my Mom!!!  God bless her!  That is no small feat to shuttle five lunatics across the country and back, fueled only by Egg McMuffins and Coke.  There was no OnStar, iPhone, or TomTom, just an atlas and one cassette tape—Alabama’s “Roll On”–to get her down the road.  I am absolutely amazed by this as I think back.  That woman was a real trooper!

I have nothing but the best memories of these Mom-lead family roadtrips of my childhood.  I have been in love with the roadtrip concept ever since.  I have done many alone and others with friends, but my most frequent companion, even well into adulthood, has been my Mom.  We have driven to and/or from New York City, New Mexico, Montana, Rhode Island, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.  I will save the tales of those adventures for another day, but suffice it to say that my Mom is the absolute best (and most bladder-challenged) traveling companion ever.

She is also the inspiration for the roadtrip bug I have been feeling lately.  My kids are now three and five, just about to the age when they could appreciate a good old-fashioned roadtrip.  When I think of trekking cross-country with them at this age, my mind tends to go directly to nightmares of chasing down rest areas while begging them to hold it, cleaning up spills on the seats, breaking up fights with the classic “If I have to stop this car!” and trying to keep them both in my sight as we walk through busy areas at stops.  It seems too stressful.  But then I think of my saintly mother in that old maroon van.  If she could do it with five of us monsters, surely I can do it with two.  My kids deserve to experience this part of my Mom’s great legacy.  Alright, I am convinced: ROLL ON!!!

How about you?  What is your favorite roadtrip experience?  Open up your journal and let your memories spill themselves out onto the paper.  What feelings does it bring up?  Did you love the driving part, or were you bored?  What music was playing?  Were your best trips with family, friends, or alone?  Where did you go?  Who was the leader, and how did that affect you?  If you have kids, are you passing on the tradition?  Leave me a reply and let me know all about your favorite spots and memories.  Tell me, are you up for a roadtrip down memory lane?

Happy trails,

William

What Makes You Happy?

DSC_0405Hello friend,

Making snow angels.  Running through the sprinkler.  Taking photographs.  Surfing.  Playing “Keep-it-up”.  Building a snowman with my kids.  Skiing.  Visiting my parents and siblings in the house where I grew up.  Writing this blog.  Holding hands with my wife and kids when we are walking somewhere.  Sledding.  Yoga.  Hiking along a mountain stream.  Reading.  Snuggling.  Just being at my family’s lake cabin.  Doing “Steamroller” across the carpet or grass with my kids, just like my Dad used to do with me.  Hitting a tennis ball.  Flying a kite.  Swimming.  Tickling my son.  Writing in my journal.  Having a dinner date with just my wife and talking about our hopes and dreams.  Ice skating.  Paddling my kayak on a quiet lake.  Swaying in my hammock. Working on my book.  Sitting by the ocean. Learning something new.  Teaching.

These are my happiest moments.  These are the activities that bring me the most unbridled, unadulterated joy.  These are the things I am willing to take time out of a busy schedule for, because I deem them to be “Good for the soul”.  They make me feel pure and centered and serene and light and alive and joyful.  They just feel right in every part of my being.

I got to thinking about these activities and the feelings they produce in me.  Does the mere doing of them—and the frequency with which I do at least one of the items on the list—dictate my level of happiness?  I tend to think of myself as the happiest person that I know.  I could be wrong about that, but I think it nonetheless.  In any case, I am happy and don’t want to trade places with anyone.  But is it all about the snow angels and the Steamroller?  Is that enough to explain my happiness?

I decided that what those activities do for me is necessary but not sufficient to justify my happiness.  That is, I need them, but there is more to it.  They certainly produce Joy, Peace, and Love, which, I think, are kind of a deal-breaker trio when it comes to living happily.  But what else does it take?  Is there a short list or equation that can actually explain not just joyful moments, but true, deep, ongoing HAPPINESS?

I checked it out.  One of the most commonly quoted happiness recipes (attributed to a variety of sources) is: 1) Someone to love, 2) Something to do, and 3) Something to hope for.  That sounded pretty good.  The philosopher John Locke went simple with, “A sound mind in a sound body.”  He is onto something there, I thought, if you expound on the “sound mind” part.  Aristotle said, “Happiness is a state of activity.”  That didn’t do it for me at all.  Mohandas Gandhi, who is on the short list of my all-time heroes, said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”  I liked that one, too, but I still wasn’t sure I had it yet.  So, I went with one of my other all-timers: my wife.  At lunch today, I asked her what she thought the short list of happiness components should be.  After a moment of thought, she came up with: 1) Contentedness, 2) Self-assuredness, and 3) Peace.  That is a solid recipe (I think I’ll keep her on my all-time hero list!).

With those wise folks as my jumping off point, I decided to take a crack at a simple recipe of my own Happiness Stew.  Here is what I came up with:

  1. As a base, pour in one gallon of Authenticity (a la Gandhi): living your Truth
  2. Fold in four cups of the Connectedness of your choice:, To a Divine Source, To family, To friends, To everything (whether you feel that is Divine or not)
  3. Blend well with an atmosphere of Progress/Growth by continually learning and stretching your limits
  4. Garnish with as many “Good for the soul” activities as you can swallow

Enjoy!  (That should actually be part of the recipe, too.)

Now, what is your recipe for happiness?  Get out your journal, and go for it!  There is no single right answer that applies to everyone, so you have to look deep into yourself to find your unique recipe.  Is it a mix of the ones I mentioned, or none of the above?  Is it way more complicated than I am making it sound?  While you’re at it, process this quote from Abraham Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  If he is right, you have an awesome responsibility on your hands!  Finally, make out your own list of “Good for the soul” activities, the things that make you feel happy at your core.  I would love to hear what you come up with, so leave a reply and get the conversation started.  Trust me, just making the list will put a huge smile on your face.  I guarantee it will be worth your time.  What are you waiting for?

Be happily you,

William

My Family’s Adopted Holiday

1975154_10202817070604257_1405049607_nHello friend,

My normally-silent cellphone was buzzing on Monday.  It was St. Patrick’s Day, and text messages were flying across the country seemingly every few minutes, loaded with photos of all sorts of green and/or shamrock-shaped food and other shenanigans.  It wasn’t my friends out on the town getting silly on green beer.  No, it was simply my siblings and parents, each in their respective homes, celebrating this minor holiday in a major way.  They were putting photos and comments on Facebook, too, sharing recipes for home-made shamrock shakes and photos of big spreads of corned beef & cabbage and shamrock cookies.  I have four siblings, and every single one—along with my parents—were doing the day for all it is worth, and then some.

As I watched the messages and photos pour in, I couldn’t help but think we are an odd bunch, making St. Patrick’s Day our unofficial family holiday.  To most people, I think this holiday is nothing more than a chance to get an extra party night in the year or to wear a green shirt as a conversation piece in an otherwise normal day.  Otherwise, on every 17th day of March, the world goes on the same as it did on the 16th or 25th day.  Schools are in session, banks are open, and no one is gearing their vacation around it.  As holidays go, it is more April Fool’s Day or, at best, Halloween, than it is Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Those are the big ones, the ones that not just get families together but bind them together.

Not my family, though.  No, while we enjoy the other holidays (and certainly gather more frequently at Christmas), the day that binds us together is St. Patrick’s Day.  It is only in the last couple of years that I have recognized this, and truly it was not always the case.  When I was a kid, we wore green just to avoid getting pinched, and of course I loved to get a Shamrock Shake at McDonald’s when we went to Montana on our annual skiing trip (I still love those shakes, too, and that is the one and only day of the year I visit the Golden Arches, driven mostly by nostalgia but also by that minty, sweet goodness).  But that was it.  St. Patrick’s Day came and went like Arbor Day or Flag Day.  It is only in my adulthood that it has become this sort of glue to my family.  But why?  This is what I was shaking my head about as I watched the messages keep flying into my phone that night.  Thankfully, it was about that time of the night when I usually sit down with my journal.  As always, my old friend helped me find some much-needed clarity on the topic.

What I came to see in the process of my writing is that the underlying motivation for us to not just celebrate St. Patrick’s Day but share it with each other in this unusually passionate way stems from our deep love of our father and our attempt to let him know that in a way that he can let in.  Let me unpack that thought.  My dad’s mother—my grandma (we called her “Nana”, and she was a gem)–was fully Irish, her parents having come from the old country and settling on the open plains of North Dakota to raise a family.  She died while I was in high school.  In the ensuing years, my old man became more sincere in his remembrance of St. Patrick’s Day, seemingly in an attempt to make sure that all of us not just remembered but honored our Irish heritage and, as an extension, his dear mother.  As my siblings and I started having kids, it was not unusual to get a little package of green necklaces, headwear, and other paraphernalia just before the big day to ensure a complete celebration and a passing of the torch to the next generation.

Tracing this back to my grandma’s death helped me see the source of the passion from my Dad’s end, but still the question was lingering about why my brothers, sisters, and I have so completely climbed onboard with it and are passing it to our own children.  It turns out that for us kids, it is also about paying tribute to a parent.  You see, my old man can be a bit difficult to get close to.  Like a lot of guys his age—or any age for that matter—he doesn’t really let his guard down enough to allow you to share a truly intimate moment with him.  He tends to disappear when it is time to say goodbye after a visit, leaving the hugs and tears role to my Mom.  It is tough to say “I love you” and have him truly receive it; he just doesn’t take that in very well or make it comfortable for you to try to say, even.  It is tough to get past the wall.

I love my Dad like crazy.  I always thought I would never be able to tell him that, though, never be able to share with him that he really means the world to me.  As you might guess, I am more open and expressive with my emotions than he is, so we are not always on the same page in the communication department.  But, as I came to understand while writing about St. Patrick’s Day in my journal on Monday, it turns out that I have, unknowingly, learned to speak his language and say what I want to say in a way that he can hear.  In the absence of a lot of hugs, terms of endearment, and the like, adopting this holiday has become the one way for the kids to tell the old man “I love you” in a way that he can accept.  We can kind of slip it in under the radar.  No one has to admit—even if we are aware of it, which I wasn’t until writing about it—that this is what is really happening.  Embracing St. Patrick’s Day to the hilt is our tribute to him and our acknowledgment of his love for his mother.  We celebrate her to celebrate him.  And since no one says that out loud, he doesn’t put up any walls or keep the celebration at arm’s length.  Even though that sounds like a lot of subconscious smoke & mirrors, it actually seems to work for everyone.  I am okay with it.

So, it seems that for my siblings and I, the depth of our sincerity in celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is less about honoring our Irish heritage than it is about honoring our Dad.  My Mom sent us all a text message Monday morning with a picture of the old man all clad in green (see above) and a quote from him: “If you’re lucky enough to be even a wee bit Irish, you’re lucky enough!  Happy St. Paddy’s Day.”  To that I would say of the man who bestowed upon me the middle name Patrick: if you are lucky enough to have a Dad even a wee bit like mine, you are lucky enough!

Okay, your turn.  Get out your journal and start exploring your mind.  What holiday has your family adopted?  What is it about that holiday that connects you to each other more than the other holidays?  Is it, like mine, underlined by a sentimentality toward a parent or grandparent?  Also, how do you communicate with your parents or family members?  Are you as affectionate and physical as you are with your close friends, or do you feel like you have to filter yourself?  Have you found a new language to speak in, like my placing uncommon importance on a holiday?  If you have kids, is the pattern reproducing itself, or have you charted a new course in affection and communication?  Probing the depths of your heart and mind about family matters is an enormous can of worms, but the digging is, in my experience, simultaneously fascinating and liberating.  How deep are you willing to dig?

Be brave and be YOU,

William