Complicated, but Simple

Posted on by

Mark was killed two days prior to the day that serves as my birth day. In 2017, feeling celebratory 48 hours after receiving the gut punch of knowing your only son was gone was impossible.

The following year, I realized I didn’t give two shits about anyone knowing it was my birthday. My better half talked about celebrating halfway through the year. Being born in January means that the day signified with cake and ice cream (or your own special guilty pleasure) is usually cold and foreboding. But any day with cake can become a great day.

I haven’t had much cake over the last three years. The summer party never appeared—the idea was a good one, it just lacked a trigger for execution—namely me giving it the green light. Again, losing Mark made celebrating another year of life seem like an exercise in futility and the kind of self-indulgence that grief and loss robs you of.

Mark loved bell hooks’ writing. I was also a fan. Shortly after Mark’s death, I bought her book All About Love: New Visions, at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick. Continue reading →

Days of Death

Posted on by

I’m taking an anthropology course at USM over Winter Session. These are “compressed” between semester course options. Basically, 15 weeks of work gets forced into an intense four-week offering. Lots of reading, writing, and reflection tacked onto an already busier stretch than I’ve had in probably three years. For a part-time student like me, it’s a way to make progress. “It’s all good,” as they say.

One of our assignments required watching an excellent documentary produced by the BBC on the Mexican Day of the Dead. In a nutshell, this is a day that combines indigenous Aztec traditions about death with the Catholic Holy Day, All Saints Day. Because Americans are rarely curious about anybody else but their own dysfunctional culture, most know little or nothing about this Mexican tradition that actually honors the dead in a way that Americans fall far short in their avoidance of the topic, or their superficial “thoughts and prayers” Facebook contributions.

Once a week since Christmas, I’ve had to respond to one of three assigned student questions we’ve all had to generate from our reading for the class. This week, I tackled this question because death and how we as Americans process it is something I’ve been living for the past three years. Continue reading →

Like a Robot

Posted on by

Millennials like to text. If you want to stay connected with them, then you’ll need to text them back. Not only do they love to text, they have their own language around texting.

But texting isn’t natural for many of us who didn’t grow up with a smartphone attached to our palms. If you came up during the time when you still received letters and notes in the mail, then texting often seems impersonal at best, maybe even jarring.

I have hundreds of emails between Mark and me. Every birthday, I’d send him a long note with stories about his birth. We bantered about basketball and baseball. We discussed politics. And on his first walk and the final one, I sent him a note every day via email.

Email shares similarities to letter-writing. I say that because it allows me to think in a conversational way, and my emails usually tend toward that kind of flow. I can ruminate while I write, much like people do when they speak in-person.

While this is anecdotal at best, I find many millennials and younger people struggling to communicate face-to-face. It’s hard to have a conversation with them sometimes. There’s a vulnerability about human-flavored communication that’s very different than the digital kind.

Gold star for robot boy.

We’re being channeled to ask Alexa all of our questions. Anytime I interact with a digital assistant like her, it feels like I’m dealing with a robot, or something less than human.

Often, when I talk to people who grew up with technology as their first language, conversation with them simulates some of those same Alexa-like elements.

Alexa, send me a million dollars.

The Holidays are Here

Posted on by

I’m no longer sure who visits this space. Since almost everyone uses social media for communication and I’d prefer not to, it’s been months since all but a tiny contingent of people have remained connected.

It’s December. For some of us, it’s not a time of holiday cheer, or happy memories from Christmases past. For families who’ve lost a child, or currently going through their first holiday season without a loved one, it’s a painful time, one infused with memories that more often than not elicit sadness.

For Mary and me, this is the first year we’ve decorated a tree since Mark was killed. He was a Christmas baby, born on December 19. This will be the third birthday of his we have to endure without our son.

Christmas in the saloon.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be filled with joy and happiness (I probably never have been), but at least this year, the dial on the sadness meter has dropped a few notches: still sad, just not “wrecked with grief.” I guess that’s an improvement when you’ve set the bar very low.

Today, I concluded a difficult class at USM. This was the first one of my history classes I’ve taken that I didn’t enjoy. In fact, I really didn’t care for the professor or anything about the class. First, it was an online class. Being that in 2019, universities are moving away from bricks and mortar and face-to-face meetings, I guess I need to adjust. Continue reading →

The Worst

Posted on by

Falsely (this is born out to me, daily), I’ve held onto some delusional notion that for a few days and perhaps—even weeks—humans in America can dig deeper and find their better natures. And after all their efforts at excavation—actually extend their humanity beyond the end of their noses. It’s probably a case of too many times viewing “It’s a Wonderful Life,” or Hallmark’s endless parade of holiday happy-ever-after schlock.

I know I’m living on another planet. Just days before Thanksgiving—that most American of holidays in terms of myth and nostalgia—I was reminded yet again in a very in-your-face sort of way of how shitty nearly every human I manage to rub elbows with, or come close enough to, and having their noxious aura leak into my own personal space. Did I tell you that I hate most humans (or many of the ones I am forced to endure, daily)?

At work, there is a tree. Someone thought we could all write what we’re thankful for on a blank leaf. Then, hang it on the tree. I don’t hold it against them. They meant well.

For more than a week now, I’ve been trying to think of something I could write that wouldn’t sound snarky, or be considered mean, or end up simply being sad. It occurred to me today that I won’t be adding a leaf to the tree.

Before Mark was killed, I had a dream. In the dream, I was asked to front a band and play guitar. This from the guy who was years out from beginning his year-long journey into simply surviving, picking up a guitar and playing it nearly every day. In the dream, somehow, I faked my way through songs and they sounded really good. I woke from the dream and thought, “I wish I could play like that.” Continue reading →

Barre Chords are Hard

Posted on by

It’s a rare day when I don’t spend at least 30 minutes with one of my guitars: whether it’s strapping on my electric or cradling my acoustic. Often, I’ll spend time with both. This has yielded improvement I never expected. Still, I have a way to go to play as well as I’d like to.

The internet is chock full of videos on all aspects of guitaring. But like all things interwebs, this plethora of information doesn’t always guarantee that you’ll learn things in a systematic manner. Also, you can spend more time searching for or simply watching videos rather time in the “wood shed” actually practicing your chops.

There’s a local musician I’ve been following. He’s had some measure of success and a few Saturdays ago, he was playing at a local watering hole. I decided to drive down to the beach and catch a set of his. I also had an ulterior motive—I was going to ask if he’d be game for giving me lessons.

We talked and he said to reach out to him via Facebook. I waited a week and sent him a note.

I’m an impatient person. When I didn’t hear back, I began looking for another teacher.

The problem once again with the internet is that it’s great for revealing information—it really sucks in terms of accessing what that information means.

On Monday I put Danny in the back seat in the midst of a snow squall and drove to South Portland. I pulled up outside a nondescript real estate office. I had no idea what door I was supposed to enter for my lesson. I texted the teacher: he came downstairs. We had our lesson. Continue reading →

Healthcare is Expensive

Posted on by

Four days a week, I take calls for a Maine-based healthcare provider. The calls run the gamut: people are sick, they want to fill their prescriptions (and there are lots of pills being pushed), or they make some variation on a common theme—demanding some kind of service (often that day), demonstrating how little they know about how broken our healthcare system really is.

Back in the late 1990s, I worked for another healthcare provider. We were an HMO, back when HMOs were supposed to save the day and reinvent medicine in America. More important in this discussion was that HMOs were expected to be the cost-containment deemed necessary at that juncture. HMOs did not save healthcare.

I really liked my gig back then. The organization was locally-managed and really had a humane, quality-focused approach to healthcare. Where I’m at now often reminds me of that time 20 years ago. However, the organization with skilled local management got swallowed like Jonah getting inhaled by the whale. A corporate giant vacuumed up the business based in Freeport and almost overnight, everything went downhill.  Profit became the primary motif and most of our group who were hired together to service a block of Midwestern business, scattered to the four corners of the work world. Some of us ended up at a disability insurer I’ve often referred to as Moscow Mutual. That’s another story I’ve written about, including in a book of essays that mainly ended up being relegated to the publishing dustbin.

Elizabeth Warren, one of the bloated field of Democrats, released details recently about her Medicare for All plan, her solution for overhauling American healthcare. As soon as Warren dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s of her plan, the critics crawled out from their corners, detailing why moving from a broken system to one covering everyone, lowering costs, and improving care outcomes won’t work. Continue reading →

Retreat at Work

Posted on by

Having a “regular job” the past 7 ½ years hasn’t been the norm for me. Project work, consulting, tutoring, along with freelancing, sprinkled a few other “moonlighting” gigs have gotten me through. This followed what felt at the time was being “kicked to the curve.” A role I was perfectly suited for and really loved being in, ended when our idiot governor at the time thought he knew better than anyone how the state’s workforce development system functioned, and de-funded parts of it. His petulance at the time affected me directly and ended six years of successful local and statewide initiatives.

In August, I went back to work. My new position is a part-time one. I’m still surviving as a writer. This requires maintaining a patchwork-quilt of income streams. I’m also spending a few Saturdays each month advising young drivers on safer practices behind the wheel.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure embracing change would end well, or even last more than a few weeks. But I’d been a satisfied consumer at this not-for-profit committed to delivering healthcare in a way that still values the patient, so I knew firsthand that their core values were genuine. When I learned they were looking for people with customer service experience and skills, I applied.

Being in a healthcare setting as an employee isn’t that far afield for me. One of my better jobs I had found me landing at Healthsource back in 1997, when they were still locally managed. Continue reading →

Back in God’s Country

Posted on by

A week ago today, Mary and I were heading north on I-65, back to places where our young family began our life together. This is about as close as one gets to having what could be called a “time machine” or sorts.

Traveling back in time, via I-65.

A week later, news is still filtering forth from the Hoosier State, fallout from the newly-minted documentary, Barefoot: The Mark Baumer Story. We got to hear a welcome voice yesterday afternoon. It was Julie Sokolow, the filmmaker. She’s remained behind after we flew back and her cohorts headed back to Pittsburgh. The festival actually has continued for another week. We were thrilled to hear that her efforts at telling Mark’s story were rewarded. The film landed the Heartland International Film Festival’s Best Premier Documentary Feature. As Mark’s parents, this elicited more emotion—but this time it was something more joyful and made us less sad. We’re thrilled for Julie and the film’s team that worked so hard in capturing Mark as elegantly as they have.

Barefoot wins award at Heartland Film.

I think Sundays will forever be a day that I remember as one that once centered on God and church, especially back in the days we first pulled up in our rented U-Haul in front of the Bible school I would be attending. Last Sunday, we drove onto the grounds of Hyles-Anderson College, where every day was focused on those two elements, at least in a theoretical and experiential manner for a 22-year-old who’d felt “called to leave everything behind save for his pregnant wife and a few belongings. Continue reading →

A Journey That Never Ends

Posted on by

Grief is primarily a solitary slog. If you and your partner end up being thrust into the position of having to share in the journey, then there are times when your parallel paths join and then, depart again.

Briefly, there are times when others come alongside: We both experienced this in the days and weeks following Mark’s death. But then, people go back to wherever they were before the tragedy occurred.

In a nation where our empathy deficit is just one of a host of maladies, this inability of other people to understand at first is maddening, then it becomes the source of anger (or sadness), then eventually you simply stop caring. You are left alone to live in a place you never considered before—but there you are—a ghost among the living.

This weekend, in addition to being pleased with the documentary that was made about Mark, we got to spend time with people who reminded us both of Mark. They were a lot like who he was, believing that our better angels might win out. The filmmaker, Julie Sokolow, is a force to be reckoned with. It would have been enough for Mary and me to have a wonderful film. But, to see Julie in her element, bringing her “A game” to the Heartland International Film Festival, on message in interviews, was a thing to behold. She’s also so easy to be around and we’ve come to consider her a friend in addition to the woman who gets to tell Mark’s story in documentary form. Having spent so much time with Mark and his memories she’s forged a unique connection with his parents.

Barefoot: The Mark Baumer Story (poster by Jim Rugg)

Continue reading →