November 30: Everyone Beamed at Him, Fred Rogers, Niceness

"Hi," he [Zaphod Beeblebrox] said again.

Everyone beamed at him, or at least, nearly everyone . . .

Here he is.  Zaphod Beeblebrox being Zaphod Beeblebrox.  Beloved President of the Galaxy.  Basking in the love and adulation of everyone around him, like some kind of intergalactic Fred Rogers, only with two heads.

Greetings on the last day of November, 2019.  As I have said in recent posts, I am pretty anxious to have 2019 in my rear view mirror.  It has not been the best of years.  For many reasons.  I am trying to make this Christmas season extra special to salvage these last days.  Doing some homemade presents.  Getting something extra special for my kids.  Practicing some self care.  Attempting to be kind to everyone.

Last night, I took my family to see the movie It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with Tom Hanks playing Fred Rogers.  The original plan was to take in the 6:40 p.m. showing.  However, when we showed up at 6:30 p.m., we found out that there wasn't a 6:40 p.m. show.  So, I made some lemonade out of lemons, and we headed over to Big Boy for a family dinner.

We sat and ate and talked for almost two hours.  It was a really wonderful time, watching my son and daughter kid around, tease and poke at each other, talk about Christmas and snow storms.  My daughter's boyfriend was in that mix, too.  He's been dating my daughter going on three years now, so he's, basically, another son to us.  We care about him a lot.

After eggs and pastas and a cookies and cream milkshake, we headed back to the theater to see the movie.  Everyone was excited (well, my daughter's boyfriend was not complaining, so I count that as excited for him).  I was tired, but really content to be with the people whom I love most.

The movie was really beautiful, and Tom Hanks was ah-mazing.  Of course.  I grew up watching Fred Rogers, as most kids of my generation did in the United States.  I was afraid that the film was going to try to humanize Mr. Rogers, peel away the cardigan to reveal a tortured soul.  It wasn't that at all.  Instead, it was the story of a journalist, Lloyd,  who was out to dig up some dirt on Fred Rogers, and he ends up being transformed by his interactions with the man (and Daniel Tiger and King Friday the Thirteenth).  It filled me with a compassion and love for people.  All kinds of people.  Good people.  Bad people.  Whole people, broken people.  And it reinforced to me the power of being nice and kind in the face of everything life throws your way.

That's a really good lesson for me right now.  I think the whole world would be a much better place if we were all a little more like Fred Rogers.  I know that the man wasn't a saint.  He had his personal struggles.  He got angry, sad, depressed, frustrated.  He was human.  But he didn't let those emotions rule his life, and he treated everyone--regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religious beliefs--as if they really mattered.

Kindness can make a broken soul whole again.

So, if I see you today, at the grocery store or church or at McDonald's, don't be surprised if I tell you how important you are to me.  How glad I am that you are in my life.  How I wish goodness and love to you and everyone who's important to you.

It's a beautiful day in Saint Marty's neighborhood.

May 10: Many Marvelous Moments, Epiphanies, Joyful and Grateful and Sad

Billy couldn't read Tralfamadorian, of course, but he could at least see how the books were laid out--in brief clumps of symbols separated by stars.  Billy commented that the clumps might be telegrams.

"Exactly," said the voice.

"They are telegrams?"

"There are no telegrams on Tralfamadore.  But you're right:  each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message--describing a situation, a scene.  We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other.  There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep.  There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects.  What we love in our books are the depth of many marvelous moments seen all at one time."

This description of Tralfamadorian novels intrigues me.  What Vonnegut has the alien describe sounds very much like poetry to me.  The careful juxtaposition of brief, urgent lines, describing a situation or scene, all with the goal of producing "an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep."  Of course, Vonnegut could also be describing Slaughterhouse, with its brief passages describing different times in Billy's life, looping back-and-forth in time and space.  The result:  not a plotted narrative, but a marvelous moment.  An epiphany.

I love epiphanies--sudden moments of undeniable clarity.  They don't happen very often in my life.  When I proposed marriage to my wife, that was an epiphany.  I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person in front of me.  When I held my infant daughter for the first time.  I surrendered myself to this little, squirming, screaming creature.  Ditto my son.  Big epiphanies.

Last night, I was saying prayers with my son before he went to sleep.  He was goofing around, laughing, throwing pillows.  Being an eight-year-old boy.  I looked at him and felt myself cracking open like a fault line.  I was overwhelmed with a realization of how much I loved him.  It kind of left me speechless for a few moments.

Now, that may not seem like some deep revelation--a father loving his son.  Nothing surprising about that.  I think what overwhelmed me last night was simply how crushing that love is.  In just a few moments, my mind had a Tralfamadorian experience.  I went from my son's birth to his first birthday, first day of school, first Christmas program, and beyond.  I pushed forward to girlfriends and high school and graduation and college.  I was joyful and grateful and sad, all at once.  That was the epiphany.

It lasted only a minute or so.  Then my son raised his butt and farted at me.  That brought me back to Earth reality.

I'm not sure I could live in that state constantly--always aware of the vicissitudes of time and love.  It was wonderful when it happened, but, for the rest of the night, I was slightly melancholy because I realized that I couldn't protect my son from the disappointment and pain that sometimes comes with growing up.  That bothered me.  I will not be able to protect my kids from heartbreak and illness and death.

My parents have lost two of their children in the last three years.  I can't imagine that kind of grief.  The day my sister died at my parents' house, my mother sat by my sister's hospital bed, held her hand after she had passed.  My mother talked to her, told my sister how much she loved her.  She just kept speaking quietly, sometimes touching my sister's face.

There was grace in that moment, but it's a grace I hope I never have to experience personally.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for the epiphanies of his son and daughter.