Uncertainty has erupted around us. That can bring fear and anxiety. None of us are immune. I hope and pray we will take a moment to consider another persons fear and anxiety and find a way to encourage them. Don’t we all need some encouragement in these tumultuous days we are living in?
Category: Personal stories
Cookies Versus Prunes – Battle for the Aged
During a visit with dad, while he was a patient in an nursing home, the dietician on staff was conversing with dad about snacks. She read a list to him of snacks that were available to him. The list included lots of items like nuts, apples, crackers, protein bars, prunes, raisins, cookies to name a few.
She paused after reading the list, allowed dad a moment to think. Then said “Mr. Evans, what do you think?” Dad answered “cookies are better than prunes.”
Not As Easy As Falling Off A Log – Part 2.2 Just Like Eddie Munster
Joshua battled several health issues as an infant. One of the most terrifying was sleep apnea. His sleep apnea was made worse because he was born with tracheomalacia. A quick description of tracheomalacia is that the cartilage in his windpipe was floppy which allowed his windpipe to close spontaneously. You can find more information on sleep apnea and tracheomalacia by following the links below.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sleep-apnea/symptoms-causes/syc-20377631
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tracheomalacia/symptoms-causes/syc-20587222
As a result of the two issues Joshua’s was in peril of dying during his sleep. That meant that every night we had to strap sensors to his tiny little body and connect them to an apnea monitor. As I mentioned in another post, Dawn and I began taking turns sleeping so one of us would be awake to rouse him if the alarm sounded.
After the first few nights and several alarms we decided that his crib was too far away in the room across the hall. We wanted to respond as quickly as possible went the alarm sounded so we decided to move him into our bedroom. But we had a space problem. There was no room for his crib on our bedroom.
We were brainstorming on how to move him to our room. I do not remember who came up with the idea but one of us remembered an episode of The Munsters that contained a solution. In the episode the Munsters are on a trip and have to spend a night in a hotel. Eddie found his bed uncomfortable and decides he wants to sleep in a drawer of the chest of drawers in the hotel room. Eureka!
We emptied a drawer and then made a makeshift mattress out of a quilt by stuffing it into a pillow case. A couple of small baby blankets for him to sleep under completed his temporary bed. The terror of the alarms were not diminished but the arrangement gave us a much peace of mind as was humanly possible.
Not As Easy As Falling Off A Log – Part 2 Getting Through the Nights
I didn’t know what to expect when Joshua was born. I did some “homework” which was mostly reading books. One stands out in my memories – What to Expect When You’re Expecting by by Heidi Murkoff.
The information was helpful in some areas. But once Joshua was born, we quickly realized that it was limited in scope and was not as helpful as we hoped. If there were books on special needs babies at the time we did not find them. We were in unknown territory with our first child, and we were soon disoriented.
Fortunately, we were surrounded by a loving church family at Woodland Baptist Church in Peoria, Illinois. We landed in their midst as homeless expectant parents to be. We were living in a hotel at first because our house was still under construction. A retired couple in the church offered us their fully furnished and vacant basement and we lived with them for several months until our house was finished. God bless you Logan and Doris and so many others.
Joshua was my first experience as a father. He is a joy and has been since the moment he came into this world. Being his father has challenged me in almost every area of parenting and being a human. It was only through on the job training that I learned enough to navigate parenting a special needs child.
I had support systems that helped me through but there was no one I could talk to that was sharing, or had shared, the same experiences. It was learn as you go, do the best you can and push through it. And it was act strong even when you did not feel strong.
The period of life-or-death battles Josh went through in the first two years was crushing us. I would not allow myself to falter for fear of a domino effect on Dawn. She was barely getting through day to day and at times it seemed like she had reached her tipping point.
One night at the hospital we were sitting with Joshua who was in a crib covered with an oxygen tent. The doctors could not figure out what was going on and the outlook was bleak. There was no certainty he would survive the night. Dawn crawled into that small crib, wrapped her body around his and stayed with him through the night. If our baby was going to heaven that night, she was going to make sure he was not alone when the moment came. She wept, prayed and sang and then wept, prayed and sang some more. Morning came. We made it.
Not as easy as falling off a log but we made it.
I Saw Joy Today – Getting Old Is Not For Sissies
This piece dates back to 2011 when I posted it on Facebook. Still makes me smile.
I encountered a joyful young man today. I went to Buddy’s BBQ in Knoxville seeking a Hawgback tater. You know….the loaded tater with BBQ on top. The guy in front of me in the line ordered one. He was promptly informed that they were sold out of Hawgback taters. Seems that they were popular today.
So I started to leave because I had my heart set on a Hawgback tater. But I decided that a pork plate with tater salad and slaw would have to do. You know being all flexible and all when it comes to food is a good thing.
So I choke down the pork plate, slaw, tater salad and several hush puppies. Then I refill the Dr. Pepper for the road and head out to the car. As I approach my car I see that I will have to wait to get in. A car has parked beside mine on my driver’s side and a lady is helping her husband out of the passenger side of their car which is blocking my way. She is holding a walker for him and he is attempting to rise out of the car seat and stand. But he is struggling a lot.
He sees me waiting and says with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes “Getting old ain’t for sissies!” I smile and nod and continue to wait. He tries again to pull himself up out of the car seat and cannot make it so I ask him if I can be of assistance. He cheerfully accepts my offer to help. So I set my Dr. Pepper on top of my car and walk over to him. Gently I reach around his waist with one arm and hold his hand with my free hand and help him to his feet. He rises to his feet, straightens his legs and then he says to me once again “Getting old ain’t for sissies”. He then promptly headed for the front door of Buddy’s on his own.
I tried to follow him toward the door to offer more assistance but his wife stopped me and with a smile said “He’s fine once he gets to his feet. We should all hope to get around that well when we are 92”!
Wow. I was amazed at the joy I saw in them individually and together. As I got into my car I thanked the Lord for this man and woman and I prayed that I would find that kind of joy now and when I am older.
How Did You Like Star Wars? (Or How to Keep Your Footing on a Slippery Slope)
My mom and dad were both close with their siblings. Shared hard times living through the Great Depression forged strong bonds that never seemed to weaken.
My uncle G is one of my mother’s brothers (name redacted to protect the innocent). He and his family were frequent visitors in our home and we visited their home frequently. There was always a congenial atmosphere so conversation topics ranged widely.
On time when we were visiting together the conversation turned to the latest blockbuster movie that had just been released. My uncle G did not like the movie and spent several minutes passionately stating his case as to why he did not like the it. There was no salty language but lots of adjectives and adverbs were flying around.
When Uncle G wrapped up his movie review he looked at my dad, who had sat through it quietly and non reactively, and asked him “what did you think Doug? Dad responded with four words and a smile “I kinda liked it.” We all chuckled and had a lovely visit.
Amendment – Dad and Uncle G were very close. More like brothers than brother-in-laws. There will be more stories about that in future pieces.
Do You Know Where You Are? Should You Tell?
In the latter days of his life dad was a patient in a nursing facility. During a visit with him I observed a hilarious interaction between dad and a nurse. She was doing an assessment and asking him a series of questions to see how grounded in reality he was. One question and answer stood out from the rest. She asked him “Mr. Evans, do you know where we are?” With zero hesitation, a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes he said playfully “I do….but if you don’t know I’m not going to tell you.”
Ginsu Wisdom From Doug Evans
Readers who did not grow up in the seventies and eighties will probably not understand the ginsu reference in the title. Commercials for ginsu knives would present the first knife and showcase what it would do. Then the announcer would ask “how much would you pay?” and follow that quickly with the statement “but wait!…there’s more!”
Dad used a similar pattern when dispensing wisdom. He was an advocate of the philosophy that it is more effective to break lessons down into manageable bite sizes than to try to force feed them all at once. His experience was that leading and teaching were always more effective when information was parceled out in a gradual and thoughtful process.
An example would be how he tried to teach me not to verbally attack or complain about others when disagreements occur. The “first knife” he showcased was the tried and true maxim that “if you point fingers at others then there are three fingers pointing at you.” He challenged me to examine the man in the mirror first.
He would allow a moment for me to reflect on how much I was “willing to pay” to embrace better conflict management skills and then he would close with the “but wait, there’s more” segment of the lesson.
He wrapped up the lesson with this statement – “If you will allow only your own point of view to be a valid or valuable point of view then you only have yourself to blame when you don’t like the scenery.”
Pupil People – It Is In Our DNA
Quick question: How often do you have the awareness and skills of observation to compare someone’s pupils?
If there are themes to my stories, one of them is that you can change your environment but you cannot escape genetics. I am frequently reminded of this as I age and reflect on how I arrived to my current state. I realize and embrace that I am still a work in progress.
Alcohol was not prohibited in our house. For a long as I can remember there were bottles of Bourbon on a very high shelf in a kitchen cabinet. These were gifts dad received from companies that he worked with that built custom machines for Great Lakes Carbon. That was a common “perk” in the sixties and seventies.
But mom and dad did not drink liquor. Dad would drink a beer in the summer on rare occasions. It is a safe bet that they never drank a drop of the Bourbon ever. Mom used it to make whiskey balls about once a year but that consumed very small amounts. And yet, over the years, the Bourbon either disappeared or got watered down to keep the bottle full. I still have several bottles, with unbroken seals, that ended up in my “stuff” after we cleaned out the house.
From 1980 to 1983 my brother and I were both in college and not living at 101 Cascade Street. On weekends we were both home it was a tradition of sorts to drive to Hickory and have a few beers. One weekend we made the trip to Hickory, consumed maybe three (or more?) beers each, and then headed back to the house. When we arrived we walked in and sat down at the kitchen table with mom and dad.
As we were talking, mom’s gaze went back and forth between us. After about thirty seconds mom declared “you boys have been drinking.” We both reacted with a “deer in the headlights” expression and denied it. She was having none of that. She said she was certain we had been drinking. So we acknowledged that we had a few beers. And we both sort of blurted out at the same time “how do you know?”
She said our pupils gave it away. We were like what?! Our pupils? She explained that she looked into our eyes and we both had one large pupil and one small pupil. She said that growing up she had learned to detect when her father had been drinking by looking at his pupils. One large and one small meant he had been drinking. We simultaneously got up from the table, went to the bathroom, stood side by side in front of the mirror and looked into our own and each other’s eyes. She was absolutely correct.
As I said, you cannot escape genetics.
The Same Pants
Another one of my fathers maxims was that I had “the same pants to get glad in that I got mad in”. Maybe it was his way of saying “suck it up, buttercup!”
His point was that the person that I had to coexist with and reconcile my feelings with was me. The statement was meant to cause me to pause, reflect, process the emotion and then move on so I (and he) did not have to coexist with an angry me for an extended period.