Posted by: Dylan Stafford | July 4, 2016

Green Sky, Blue Grass: #1

Green Sky, Blue Grass: #1

We all get numbers in life.

My numbers were always one and three. I got one when I arrived as the first-born child of Ginny and Jack Stafford. Mom and Dad had two more children and I got my other number, three, as in oldest of three.

And those were always my numbers, one and three. Dylan, Lisa and Jon were the three kids of Ginny and Jack.

And now my sister Lisa has passed away, unexpectedly, too young and too soon.

My brother and I are two now.

With Lisa, we have always been three.

Two? Two is not right. Two not the way life was supposed to go.

Green Sky.

Blue Grass.

It’s not supposed to be this way.

* * * * *

 

If I just be patient, she’ll figure it out.

That was what I told myself the last few years. If I could learn to accept and to be patient and to trust the universe, then sooner or later, my sister Lisa was going to find a way to live that worked for her. That is what I said to myself.

But that is not how it went.

On May 19, 2016, my sister Lisa passed away. She was only 44 years old.

Did she die too soon? Or was it a miracle she lived as long as she did?

Yes.

Yes to both.

BODY

For a decade, my sister wrestled with health challenges, with long-term chronic pain.

What was it like for her, to have her body cease to support her?

Lisa was incredibly resourceful, a natural researcher with access to the Internet and a librarian’s curiosity, she could always find out things through dogged persistence. She would figure it out, I always thought. She would hang in there and somehow she’d put together a life that worked for her body.

MIND

For longer, for maybe her whole life, Lisa also wrestled with her thoughts. Growing up, I thought she was moody, that her highs and lows could be a tad higher and a tad lower.

Did she have a diagnosis? Was she “something?” Did she have a doctor-prescribed label? I don’t actually know.

She was smart, my sister Lisa. She may have had an actual mental something, but I never heard it officially, only tangentially.

Her mind was not her trusted friend. Whatever diagnosis she did or didn’t have, there was an element of her mind that wasn’t her friend.

After losing her, I look and I think that her body failed her and that her mind was treacherous for her at times. And then I wonder, What about her spirit?

SPIRIT

Her spirit: What about that?

Her spirit was constant. That deep core of her was constant. That deep center that I knew from our shared childhood and teen-age years, through twenties and thirties, and for four of her forties, that spiritual core was steady as she goes.

Lisa loved family, music and animals.

Lisa loved laughing, driving and talking.

Lisa loved color, clothing and creativity.

Those things that Lisa loved were an expression of her deep inside–made manifest on the outside–of her spirit. To me it was like Lisa had deeper roots, that she pulled nutrients out of the soil that I couldn’t reach.

Lisa had an antenna for life that picked up channels most people didn’t receive. She was perceptive. She noticed nuances. Where I might possibly hear the trumpet, she was listening to the entire orchestra.

Lisa was an English major in college. She loved language. She loved interpretation and subtlety. She loved to refer to her OED, her Oxford English Dictionary, as if it were a friend she could talk to, as in, “I’ll just go ask my OED.”

Lisa loved that both of her grandmothers appreciated poetry. Her love of music grasped the poetry of the lyrics. She collected gigabytes of classic rock and studied the rhymes and reasons of the songwriters.

Lisa’s intelligence and her words and her language meant she was difficult to debate. She’d stake a position and build a case and good luck getting her to move. It took me a long time to realize that everything she stated wasn’t automatically “the way it was” because she was so convincing.

GIFT

So I have memories of Lisa now, of her body and her mind and her spirit.

Thank God for memories.

But Lisa did something else that is much more than a memory. Lisa gave me a gift that gives me strength to live and laugh and smile and love, every single day. Lisa gave me the greatest gift of my life, and it was her spirit that opened the door.

SPIRIT TWO

Over several months, from the end of 2000 and into 2001, Lisa took me to “open” twelve-step meetings in Ft. Worth, Texas. She was in a chapter where she was creating her life free of “chemicals that affect you from the neck up.” She invited me to go to these 12-step meetings with her. And I went, to support her.

I had some time on my hands.

For the fall of 2000 I was taking a leave of absence from my company Siemens. I’d been in Munich, Germany, on a fancy international assignment from 1997-2000. I had returned home to the US and asked for some time off to “figure out what I wanted to do next in my career.” It also turned out that my girlfriend and I were breaking up, but I didn’t know that yet.

If you hang around the barbershop long enough, you might get a haircut.

And

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.

Twelve-step meetings are a world of language unto themselves. The stories, the personalities, the clichés and principles all swirl around in the cracked-vessel, God-given chaos that offers hope and life to people who’ve lost at living life on life’s terms.

Nobody comes into 12-step work riding high, with a brand new car and an awesome career, the spouse and the kids all shiny and perfect.

More often a 12-step meeting is the last house on the block, the last option. To a newcomer it is like finding the only porch with a light on, but it’s a small 30-watt bulb hanging on a bare wire, barely visible from the cold street. But it is something. And it is something spiritual.

At least it was for me.

But remember me, the one who might barely hear a trumpet? How would I ever see that small 30-watt bulb? It was Lisa’s antenna that picked up the signal. Without Lisa, I would have missed the 30-watt light, missed the porch all together.

But this was a unique pause in my life, this fall of 2000.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

The student was me.

The teacher was my kid sister Lisa.

She took my hand, the hand of her proud big brother, and she guided me.

After four months of open 12-step meetings, of free coffee and funny stories of bank robbers and home-wreckers and all the chaos of people learning to live in recovery, my sister Lisa asked me one Sunday night in the car, “Dylan, do you think you might be an alcoholic?”

It was a shock.

There I was, four months in the waiting chair at the barbershop, but when they asked me if I was ready for a haircut it was still a surprise.

And Lisa was the only person on the planet who could have gotten me into that barbershop, and then posed that question.

No one else could have coaxed me to go to 12-step meetings. Without my sister Lisa, I would have gathered my ego, licked my wounds, jumped back into my career and powered ahead, building a life without a foundation. And I’d have built too big, and it would have crumbled. But Lisa bypassed that; Lisa’s gentle hand led me to sobriety at least a decade early; She saved me a decade of self-inflicted pain.

All her love and language and the gentle warrior she could be, I was the beneficiary of that. I was a proud, first-born Texas son with two degrees who spoke three languages. And I distinctly remember thinking, sitting in the car with Lisa, shocked at her question, I remember my brain formulating this thought, “An alcoholic? Me? There’s no space on my resume for that!”

Looks like a duck, probably a duck.

Lisa pricked the balloon of my pride.

On the outside my life still looked like it was working, but on the inside it wasn’t.

I was almost a decade older than my mom and dad had been when they’d married, but I couldn’t make a relationship with a woman work. I was disappointed in myself but I couldn’t see that I was my own problem.

Lisa could see that even though I couldn’t.

Sometimes the person who brings you to sobriety is called “your Eskimo,” as in the person who brought you out of the cold. The person who brings you to sobriety is a big person. That person is a hero. That person has the courage to tell you to your face to look at yourself. And that is no easy conversation.

That person is a spiritual giant.

That is what I honor in my sister Lisa.

Her spirit.

It was her spirit, her center, her deep generous love of family and poetry and life in all its goodness that guided her to guide me.

So here I am now, living life without my kid sister Lisa. With my brother Jon, I’m a two now instead of a three. For the rest of my life I will live without seeing Lisa, without talking to her, without hearing her laugh and seeing her smile. That is what is absent, her body and her presence.

But her spirit is alive and well.

Her spirit is what I get to honor as I keep walking the spiritual path that she gifted to me, a day at a time. Her spirit isn’t only a memory. It is because of Lisa that I have a foundation to be a decent husband, a tender father, to be employable; None of that is a memory; All of that is Lisa’s spirit living still. It’s her gift. Her spirit is alive and well. I see Lisa in clouds, floating and changing and watching over me.

Thank you God, for my sister Lisa. Welcome her into the light of your face. Thank you for the gift of 44 years of being her big brother. Thank you for her generosity of spirit.

Amen.

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Posted in Acceptance, Honoring Sister Lisa

Posted by: Dylan Stafford | March 24, 2014

Parents-of-the-Year

My wife’s grandfather lived to be 94. Alphonse was 90 at our wedding, in his 69th glorious year of marriage to Helen, his wife. She passed away the week after we got home from our honeymoon; politely waiting for her granddaughter to get back.

When asked the secret to parenting, and living in general, Alphonse said, “Trial and error. Mostly error.”

Our younger son Christian turned two this month. On the actual day of his birthday, I needed to stay at work late for a dress rehearsal for the student talent show; I was a mock-Jedi-turned-stoner in a skit (a perk of working at a university).

Normally, I take Christian home from daycare, but to help me out, my wife adjusted her schedule and picked him up from UCLA so that I could attend the dress rehearsal. We met at the parking lot of a McDonald’s on Pico, about half-way home, and did a toddler-exchange. Now empty-handed, I got a fish sandwich, fries and a Diet Coke and went back to school.

The student in charge of the dress rehearsal knew it was my son’s birthday and graciously allowed our skit to rehearse first. Much sooner than I anticipated, I was done and heading home. It was only 6:45.

[Here’s the actual talent show; if you’re really bored you can forward to 47:00 for some fine, fine acting. I’m wearing the Jamaican beanie.]

Anderson’s Got Talent – 2014 UCLA Anderson Talent Show, full edit from UCLA Anderson on Vimeo.

As I got into the car, my phone rang. It was a blocked number, but I answered anyway.

“Hi Dylan, this is Victoria.” Victoria is our retired neighbor across the street who is always helping us out. “Marisa asked me to call you to see how long until you are home.”

“I’m actually just getting in the car. I’ll probably be home in about 30 minutes with traffic.”

“OK. Well apparently, what has happened is that Christian has locked himself in the house, and Marisa and Jackson are outside. Christian’s OK, but he’s inside crying. Marisa is sitting at the door, talking to him through the door. They were bringing in groceries and she’d set her purse down, and Christian took it upon himself to close the door and locked her outside. Normally, I have an extra key but with all the renovation, I gave it back to you all to give to the contractor,” Victoria said.

“Crap–and I bet the garage is locked too, because of the contractor’s tools,” I said. “There’s a spare in the garage somewhere but you can’t get to it.” [We are at the end of a renovation.]

“Marisa will be glad you’re on the way; I’ll let her know 30 minutes. Drive safely and get home as soon as you can,” she said.

During the first year of Christian’s life, we were “fost-adopt” parents, meaning we were technically his foster parents, and if all went well, we were on the trajectory to adopt him and be his forever parents. During that whole year, I was always superstitiously afraid of something like this, a whoops-a-daisy that would trigger some catastrophic change.

“Sorry there Mr. Stafford, but upon further review, you’re not qualified to parent this young lad. Sorry.” That was how my nightmare always went.

That never happened and Christian is 100% our boy now. But, driving home on his birthday, knowing he was locked inside and crying, I felt very unqualified. With two fail-safes we’d still managed to lock ourselves out, and our baby in. Great planning Dad.

I got home and carefully pulled up. No emotions. Just park the car. I walked up to the door where Marisa was seated, leaning against the door. Big brother Jackson was playing handball against the garage, oblivious. I put the key in, entered, and bent to pick up our little blond bear.

“Christian Christian Christian… Everything is OK. Todo esta bien,” I said, hugging him and looking him over and wiping his tears, with Marisa doing the same. “Everything is OK. Tshh tshh tshh. Todo esta bien,” I continued, using all the calming noises I know and rocking him and holding him snug against me.

He was fine. After a few minutes it was as if nothing had happened. He locked himself inside when Marisa went back for several bags of groceries, including a Carvel ice cream birthday cake. It was soft from sitting outside waiting to be brought in, but it survived. We all ate dinner together. We gave Christian a small piece of birthday cake. We sang happy birthday to him and he loved it.

The following Sunday, we were running late to church and by the time we got to Santa Monica, I figured we were probably going to miss the sermon.

“Why don’t you get out and go in with Jackson. I’ll find a spot and catch up with Christian,” I said to Marisa as I pulled into the 5 minute spot out front. She got out with Jackson and headed into the sanctuary.

I started to circle the block to find the entrance to the underground parking garage but found an open street spot; there are almost never any street spots. The cars in front and behind had parked awkwardly, each over a foot from the curb. The spot was just long enough for me to squeeze in my car, with a lot of scooch-turn-scooch-turn, back and forth. After several minutes I got out and went around to get Christian from his car seat.

I was well over a foot from the curb myself, really a poor parking job. “Am I going to get a ticket?” I wondered. I got a ticket a block away a few years ago. My bumper had been into a red zone by less than a foot, but they’d ticketed me nonetheless.

I was all-the-way cranky now, very un-spiritual. “Why am I even here? I’ve probably missed the sermon. Should I go re-park in the garage? That will take another ten minutes at least. I hate Santa Monica.” All these lovely thoughts were going through my mind as Christian held my hand and we walked away from the car down the sidewalk.

I decided to risk the ticket and at least hear the end of the service.

The day was bright and beautiful despite my foul mood. When Christian and I came in the back of the church, my eyes were barely able to see as they adjusted to the dark of the sanctuary. We were walking across the back of the church, in the row behind the last pew. I was looking for Marisa and Jackson, squinting to find them with my sunshine-impaired eyes.

Maybe Christian’s eyes needed to adjust too. Maybe, in spite of being locked in a house on his birthday, he still trusted his daddy implicitly and knew his daddy would never lead him in harm’s way. Poor child.

Christian was walking on my left, his right hand reaching up and holding my last two fingers. My position was all wrong. I should have been further to the right, hugging the back wall, to make space for Christian and I to walk side-by-side in the back aisle.

Instead, I was walking right in the middle, distracted, looking for Marisa. Christian must have been looking who-knows-where, because there was a sharp knock, like something solid hitting wood, followed instantly by a shrieking cry coming up from my poor Christian.

The something solid was Christian’s forehead. In my half-blind, annoyed haste, I had walked Christian forehead-first right into the pew and he was screaming about it. I swooped him up into my arms and we vacated out the back through the always-open sanctuary doors, back outside into the beautiful morning, warmed by the stares of people on my back, people wondering if they’d ever seen a more inept father.

“Oh Christian. Oh Christian. It’s OK. Todo esta bien. Todo esta bien.” I rocked and swayed and took it like a man as he screamed, loudly, right at me. I’d scream too, if my father was as big an idiot as I felt at that moment.

He calmed down after a while, longer that it took on his birthday. We made it inside, carefully and quietly, and found Marisa and Jackson. We had missed the sermon. But she told me later it was about Lent, the season. The root of the word is from “Lente” meaning “slow” like in music, to play slowly.

Trial and error, mostly error. That was the life advice from Marisa’s grandfather. He lived to 94. 50 whole years from where I am now. Maybe I can slow down and get there myself.

3 Comments

Posted in Acceptance, Daddy-time, Dylan's Diaries, Funny, Really? | Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by: Dylan Stafford | February 23, 2014

Two hearts

“When you hug someone, lean to the right as you come together so that your hearts touch. Our hearts give out energy, and when we bring them together, we are more alive.”

That may not be the exact quote, but that’s how I remember it. My friend Premod told me that. Premod’s one of the people I most respect because of how he lives his life. He’s one of those guys who does the right thing, even when no one is watching.

This morning I went to church with my wife and two sons. Our older son went off to Sunday school and Marisa and I were in the service with Christian, our not-quite-two-year old.

Christian is a lot to handle during church. He’s almost 31 pounds now, blond and blue-eyed and a flirt. Usually the people in the row behind us miss a lot of the sermon because he’ll be making eyes and faces and generally be Gerber-baby-charming all service. Today, the older couple in the pew behind us moved away, annoyed and surrounded by us in front of them and another family behind.

I love having Christian with me in church. I hold him up extra high on my hip during the singing. I whisper in his ear during prayers to try to keep him quiet. We weaned him off his pacifier at the start of the month and he’s a lot noisier “unplugged” now.

As I held him during one anthem today, I felt wetness on my left arm where he sat. Somehow the new diaper that I’d put on him at home had already reached maximum density and started leaking. I walked him out the back and around to the parking garage and down the elevator and put a fresh diaper on him. We re-traced our steps and made it back in time for Communion.

The Communion process started and as I stood, singing and rocking with him, he fell asleep on my shoulder. I went forward and got my wafer and genuflected and made it back to my seat. Normally, the up and down would wake him, but today he kept sleeping.

The service ended and people filed out and Marisa went off to be with our older son for the children’s service that follows the children’s Sunday school. We made a plan that I would be in the back corner of the sanctuary as long as Christian kept sleeping, or else outside at the coffee and donuts if he woke up.

Christian slept almost forty-five minutes, from about 10:30 to 11:15. He was face down on my chest the whole time. I don’t think he ever changed the cheek that was resting against me until he finally woke up, all rumpled looking and dazed with slightly sweaty hair.

I had wedged myself into a corner pew for him to sleep, leaning up against the wall with my arms cradling his butt to keep him supported. The volunteers came by, collecting the song sheets and golf pencils that were left behind in the pews. Older women smiled and whispered “Oh-he’s-so-beautifuls” at me. The high school volunteers, mostly boys, if they noticed at all, didn’t say anything.

More than once, I got a pain from the hard wood pews on my back and the 31 pound heater on my chest. I’d wiggle to change my position but also not wake him, but it was never actually comfortable.

I told myself to use the time as a meditation and I started to listen to his breathing. Then I started thinking about our older son, now almost seven years old, and how he is already both too big to fit on me and too wakeful to sleep anymore in the daytime.

It was this thought that got me present to the gift of the moment with Christian. And then the quote from Premod came to me too.

“Wow, my heart and Christian’s heart are right next to each other. For the last 40 minutes, our two hearts have been beating right against one another,” I thought.

“I wonder how that will help him grow. I wonder how many babies out there will go through their whole childhood without getting to be held, and loved, and have their heart beat next to another heart.”

I’m sure I’ll make many mistakes raising my sons. That is part of the parenting job description, “Trial and error, mostly error.”

But for today, for those 45 minutes, my body was telling his body, “You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.” Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Over and over and over again.

Just for today, that was enough.

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Posted in Dylan's Diaries | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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