Happy Mother's Day

To my Mother who abandoned me,

Happy Mother's Day mom. I hope this card finds you happy and well. I think if we could meet up you would be proud of me, at least I hope you would be proud of me. I have done well for my life, am married and have two wonderful kids. I have made a difference in the world around me and will leave it better than when I was born into it.

I have achieved a lot in my life, it would be great if I could tell you about them all, I think it may make you proud of me.

My kids are asleep, but soon they will wake up and give their mom the cards they made, the gifts they made and shower her with hugs and kisses. She will be so proud of them, the colors they used, the cute drawings, the correct spelling and wording they wrote out in crayon.

Then we will go to church and hear a Mother's Day message on how God loves and blesses mothers in our life. He will be making general statements because I know they won't really pertain to me. Instead I will be in my own head and maybe flipping through the Bible I will fall upon Psalms 20:10 "For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me in."

I think you would have been proud of me if you had just gotten to know me. I would have eaten all my vegetables, used my manors and colored insides the lines. If we were too poor I wouldn't have eaten too much, I would have worked hard for money, I would have done what I could have to keep us together, I guess maybe I didn't do those things when I was born and that's why you had to let me go. I'm sorry.

I know I don't know you or dad but I would have tried hard to make you proud. I haven't known you in person but I feel your spirit surround me everyday. Like a ghost that always stands behind me, judging me and everything I do. I want to turn around and ask, "is that good enough? Does that win your love, your approval? Would you keep me now?"

I push myself harder and harder to just hear your voice, to get the ghost to speak and say something, anything. But you stand there in silence. Are you ashamed of me?

I know you can't speak because you are not real. But I suppose your silent ghost keeps pushing me, harder and harder. I just need to hear you say it and then I will be okay.

When I was in kindergarten I won an art contest and won a big box of crayons. I never used those crayons because I wanted to show you them. On my way home you just sat there, I asked if you were proud of me but you just sat there.

In the fourth grade I won a writing contest, I got to meet a famous author but I can't remember what she said because I was holding the trophy so tight. I didn't want to lose it before I had time to show you. You didn't care.

I raced my way to the nationals in track in high school. I could have been great from what I was told by all my coaches but I stopped competing. No matter how many wins I got, no matter how many people I beat, you and dad just sat in the stands. Never cheered, never praised, just statutes. Even if you would have booed or said you didn't approve at least I would have know why. But you didn't, you just sat there, transparent ghosts. 

I got married. You didn't say anything.

My son was born. Nothing.

My daughter. Nothing.

I ran a half Ironman, I thought of you the whole way. "This has got to do it..." I thought. Yet as I crossed the finish line I was as empty as when I had started. I realized in that moment I've been running since you left me, I've been running to catch up to you, to find you. I'm still running.

I know I have to make you proud to win your love, then you would have kept me as your son. I know I didn't do the right things back then but I promise I will keep pushing myself until I am good enough.

I miss you mom, I wish you would let me come home.

Happy Mother's Day,

Your Son,

Drew.

P.S. Mom, I'm not mad you abandoned me, in fact if I had my whole life to do over I would keep it the same. Why? Because it has made me who I am today, I'm proud of who I am and it keeps pushing me to become better. I won't ever stop getting better. I know I will never be good enough for you and I'm okay with that, your disapproval is the fuel that drives me to live on. I got a beautiful wife and kids now, a wonderful family, and I would never leave them. Never, you taught me that the damage is just too great. 

Nothing I Hate More Than Nothing

There are some choices in life that you just can't fix. That once made, haunt and cripple you forever:

Marrying the wrong person.
Having kids with the wrong person.
Buying a bad house.
Contracting HIV.
Killing someone.
Going to prison.
Cutting off your ear to impress someone.

Then there are things that happen to us that we did not choose yet still haunts and cripples us:

Being raped.
Being abandoned or adopted.
A loved one suddenly passing away.
Your home and possessions lost to natural disaster.
A meteor striking the earth and forcing all left over life to flee underground close to the earth's core.

Yet more tragic then all that is the inevitable back side to every happy moment, every triumph, success, every moment of levity... That no matter how high one gets, gravity will bring you down. No matter how happy life becomes it will always end tragically. That no matter the success it is always decayed and destroyed by weather and time. Everything will come to a state of rest eventually, everything will be reset to zero and in time everything will be ground in to dust that was the nothingness that existed before time.

Whether we make the right or wrong decisions in life, no matter how much we invest or withdrawal in the end the balance will be zero. Whether spiritual currency, physical, mental or moral in the end the balance will always be zero and the very coin we valued or tossed will be nonexistent dust.

I'm stirring ideas and thoughts in my head. I'm looking for an out come, a message, wisdom that will stand the test of time. I'm searching for words of hope, someway to tie in all the words I am writing into a point, a reason. I am pondering over my life's events, the senseless death of friends and the rise in body counts that seem to become a more and more frequent event in my life. I am dreaming of the future and studying my visions to some how wrap up everything I have written up to this point and make sense of it all.

Nothing.

Just Another Day at the Beach

I see planes flying above me and wonder where they are going. It's perfect right here but everyone always dreams of a different place, a different time and somewhere always away from here.

There is an awesome peace in the violence of the waves. The glass swells and then sweeps back into itself. A plane of solid jade that stretches even as its surface seems to constrict into a rolling sparkle of diamonds dancing in sparkles till each ones becomes one in a crashing wave of foam. The fingers of white grasp at the sand and then turn into spider webs of white strings stretching across the jade. The ocean's tongue laps at the salt if the earth.

It is reaching for me, for the sand between my toes. It gives me motion parallax that the universe is still and I am floating through the earth and to the sea.

Sometimes not moving is traveling far enough.

The waves continue to reach for the sand. Sending children in to shrieks as their toes twist and ice cubes fill their ankles.

Smiles. Laughs. Joy.

And there is my son, the architect of the universe building castles made of sand with seaweed flags and rock walls. His creations repel the entire greatness of the ocean. A planet can shake the earth, summon the power of the moon, yet as long as he stands guard, between the waves his castle will stand. Sure, if we leave the ocean will eat it, but not until we let it.

Power to stand against the elements, in the face of sure defeat and to say, "not until I let you" is something far beyond a Saturday at the beach yet a lesson that will be used in life.

Ships skip atop the water, sails float on the breeze and birds skim between heaven and earth. The clouds mimic the water, the waves and sends a crest of pillows across the sky. The ocean is summoning her moon... She over takes the castles and my son rebuilds.

Life is far to complex beyond the beach. The sea line is where reality meets fiction and we can play as children on the touches of two universes. Here things are simple, just enjoy yourself.

There is a fore ground and a background, and in daily life we fill the space between with layers and layers of middle ground. Distracting us from what is right in front of us and hiding the background of what it all means. The middle ground is filled with work, relationships, commitments, deadlines, dues, dates and obligations. The foreground is where you exist and the background is our playground.

At the beach the fore ground and back ground are one, a seamless setting, a stage where you are not distracted by all the things in the middle.

The sun is warm here.

5 rules for success

5 rules for success:

1. Only thing you can control is your attitude, always stay motivated.
2. Take pride in your work and ownership of your results, never be a victim.
3. Devote your life to better others. Love hard, forgive harder.
4. Know yourself and seek self improvement. If you don't evolve you become a dinosaur and they are extinct.
5 SHUT UP and get back to work!!!

Motivational Posters

So here is my line of motivational posters featuring my moto saying, "My ________ starts where yours ends."

I'm sure I will have some more... enjoy.

(Not all photos are my original photography...)

Communicate

Having a conversation is like painting. Some people dump buckets of paint or mix the wrong colors making mud. Your tongue is like a brush, you need to use the right size, shape and let it flow along the canvas. What we speak sends a message yet more importantly it paints a picture of ourselves.

What is the color, tone and subject of what we say, yet what does what we say really say about us?

Do we stay in the lines, are we abstract, are we masters of our own medium?

I like to think my words paint a picture soft and gracious like The Birth of Venus, yet I'm sure I'm more Hieronymus Bosch. I sculpt like David yet my words become more like a mess, the chiseled away leftovers laying on the floor, my message haphazard and melting away like Dahi.

What do my words paint about you?

There is an art to speaking. Like painting the time creating the master piece should be less than the time enjoying it. We need to listen more than we speak, we need to observe.

Communicate in a way that shows interest, empathy and appreciation, never criticize, condemn or complain. Every human interaction either builds a relationship or destroys one.

Cardboard Swords

I can't help but be thankful for such a wonderful life.

Last night I spent my time hiding on the top bunk bed, fortified with Nerf guns and a green form ball shooter. I was hiding from two kids who's screams and shrieks cut through the darkened house. I'm sure my wife got annoyed with all the noise and rambunctious actions of her 'three' kids, especially when she got ambushed in the hallway and caught in a hail of foam bullets.

Who chases kids with cardboard swords and traps them into bathrooms, only to torment them by sliding the sword under the door and poking their toes?

I do.

The screams and squeals as I 'chop' at their piggies! Alex finally grabbed the sword and pulled it under the door. Then he started stabbing back and I made dying sounds. Then silence. The kids called for me, testing to see if I was really gone or just pretending, of course I was pretending and hiding around the corner or sometimes in a closet. I could hear Alex telling Sofia to go check and she would giggle out a no. After minutes of debate they would come out, peaking and saying not to scare them. They would slowly investigate the whole house as I stood still hiding in the shadows and behind doors. Then when they just couldn't stand it any more I would jump out, scare them into screams and the chase was back on!

I love playing with my kids. I think far too often we do stuff but we don't really play. Sure we can see a movie or go to the park yet are we really playing with our kids or just watching them? When was the last time you hung on the monkey bars or slid a slide?

I won't go down slides because I have a static shock phobia. Seriously.

But all too often we are just observers or even in interaction we still have a parental separation.

I like to be a kid with my kids. Climbing on the playground structure or hiding in the racks of clothes at the department stores and scaring the kids. Other parents always look at me, fathers make funny faces of disgust and women always smile and their eyes light up at my youth.

I think it is so important to cherish these times with my kids. Far too soon they will be interested in other things and not dad, and soon I will be replace by other people. Who knows maybe I will even pass away, but all I know is that we have this time right now. I never want to hear my kids say I wasn't there or I didn't give them any attention.

I am truly blessed to be a father!

One of my favorite things to do with my kids is to thumb wrestle and play rock paper scissor. We take it very seriously and to be honesty my kids all got strong thumbs. Its the little things like that they will remember.

Do we really get involved with each other? Do we count watching TV or being in the same room as time well spent? Do we truly interact with one another where one person's smile, laughter and joy is not shared yet the same as ours?

I was single for a long time because I wanted to find the right person. My test was if we could spend a day doing nothing and still have fun, still have something to talk about then it would be right. Of course I found her but think about that. If you took away all the toys, games, TV, attractions and stuff, would you still have something to talk about? Would you still have something to do? Could you still be a parent, husband or wife?

It's when we pretend that makes a true childhood real.