Family

Where We Were Meant to Be

• Family, Personal Essay • 30 Comments

We are walking through Central Park on a beautiful May morning, two lovebirds, married these many years. It’s our third day in Manhattan, and it feels as though the city has opened its arms wide and hugged us. Everywhere we look is green and lush. We pass a bakery nestled deep inside the park and decide to return tomorrow for a coffee and treats.

We emerge from the meadows and winding paths to the thrum and bustle of the Upper West Side. We walk up Broadway looking for a stationery store that sells my kind of notebooks and the art supplies she needs for an upcoming drawing class. The store is nearby, and I’m scanning both the businesses along the street and the map on my phone.

Without warning, Lisa stops. She points to a store sign and speaks a series of numbers. A SEPHORA sign comes out as 8-4-3-5. The neon TD Bank sign is another string of numbers. I look at her closely to see if she’s joking. She’s not.

…

Where We Were Meant to BeRead More »

A Father’s Grief

• Family, Personal Essay • 17 Comments

This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever written. I’m sharing this partly because I hope that releasing these words will provide some catharsis from the excruciating pain I have carried around these last months. Perhaps the sentiments I’ve conveyed here can be a small comfort to someone who has experienced a similar tragedy. I also know that people are worried about us, about me. Consider this an abbreviated journal of our past one hundred days. Unlike anything else I’ve written, this one contains no epiphany, enlightenment, or happy ending. This one is mired in the messy middle of heartbreak and loss.

On the night of September 27th, our son Connor died in a motorcycle accident in Colorado Springs. A car pulled out in front of him on a busy street a half mile from his apartment. He was killed instantly in the crash. He was riding a motorcycle he had owned for just one day. He was twenty years old.

I mentally replay the call we received from the coroner’s office in the wee hours of September 28th over and over and over again, my mind trying to push this all away, to wake up from the darkest, longest nightmare of my life. …

A Father’s GriefRead More »

Keep the Change

• Family, Personal Essay, Travel • Leave a Comment

As I walked through the throng of travelers at LAX recently on my way to a flight that would be canceled the minute I got to the gate, I reflected on how change is the only real constant in life. In less than a week, I found myself hurrying through crowded airports in Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles (fun fact: these three airports accounted for 60% of all holiday flight cancelations). From Denver, I drove 1,200 miles to Los Angeles in a Jeep with Connor and his ten-month-old puppy, listening to baseball podcasts (yes, that’s a thing) through Colorado and New Mexico. The music changed to hip hop in Arizona, and I felt nostalgic for the podcasts. I paid nearly $7 per gallon for gas in California and felt nostalgic for Arizona. We survived freeway driving in the rain as we neared Los Angeles with Connor relying on his 19-year-old reflexes — or the Force — to weave in and out of 80-mph traffic. …

Keep the ChangeRead More »

Organizing the Tool Shed

• Family, Personal Essay • 1 Comment

In my office, I keep an old photograph of the Buckaroo Tavern in the Seattle neighborhood of Fremont. The photo truly captured the character of the place: two chrome-festooned Harley Davidson motorcycles parked up on the sidewalk out front, bright orbs from the lights hung over the pool tables, and an outstretched arm and pool cue of a patron poised in mid-shot. I spent many nights at this dive bar as a young man. My eyes burned from the cigarette smoke, and the rough-looking biker crowd that congregated at the bar would often chuckle over their beers at this clean-cut accountant toting a pool cue case, but I loved the place. I had the photograph framed when we first moved to Vashon Island. It hangs between a picture of Mark Twain standing before a pool table considering his next shot and a signed photograph of Jack Dempsey in his famous boxing stance. But, it’s the tavern picture that has caught my attention lately as I think back on that long ago life before kids. …

Organizing the Tool ShedRead More »

Coaches

• Family, Personal Essay • Leave a Comment

I’m told I say it every year, but today was certainly the best Father’s Day ever. Being spoiled by my two children, and seeing how they’ve become wonderful adults has put me in a thankful, reflective mood. I’m sure every generation thinks this, but I believe what it means to be a father has changed a lot over the past thirty years. I had the benefit of having two dads as I grew up, first one and then the other. I loved them both, but I looked for other role models when I became a father myself. …

CoachesRead More »

Scroll to Top