Life...and Death

I haven't posted to this blog since 2010, I believe. It's not that I didn't have anything to say, but life just goes on and you have other priorities. I always enjoyed jotting down my thoughts, but the rush of life makes it difficult to just stop and think...and write. Anyway, I'm not going to go on and on about the last 9 years; I just want to say "I'm back". I took the day off today to kind of take care of a few things that needed to be done. I stopped to watch a little television and the Mueller Report was all over the news. One station (I'll let you guess which one) was spinning the release of the redacted Mueller Report on Russian interference in the 2016 election in favor of Trump. The others were all telling it like it is...or as they saw it to be. It was all big news...but I'm so weary of news about Trump. So, I switched channels and ran into this movie that I had been wanting to watch, called 50/50. It starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt (from 3rd Rock from the Sun), Seth Rogan and Anna Kendrick. I knew it was about a diagnosis of cancer, but thought it might be somewhat of a comedy since Seth Rogan was in it. It was not. I found myself (at several points) bawling my eyes out. I couldn't decide if it was because of the fact that I meet so many people who have had cancer in my job selling cancer insurance, or that I was empathizing with the mom who was so saddened by her son's diagnosis, or perhaps that I was thinking about the near death experience I had almost 5 years ago. I suppose it was a combination of all those things. To bring you up to date a little bit...I fell down a flight of stairs on May 12, 2014 while on my honeymoon in The Netherlands with family. I spent the next 10 days in the hospital and had neck fusion and spinal surgery. My life has been back to normal since then, but movies that deal with surgery or watching things that remind me of the fall will bring back strong emotions. Sometimes (like today) I am overcome with emotion thinking about it...telling my wife, Julia, I love her before going into surgery, or thinking about how my family back in America must have been feeling being so far from what was happening. I know my parents and kids were probably thinking of how they might come to Holland to be with me, but financially it would've been very difficult. I've thought a lot about life....and death...in the days and years since the accident. I've thought a lot about how blessed I am to have such a loving family. I've thought about how there are so many people who go through much worse than I have in their lives and do NOT have a family like mine who love them and support them through everything, and how extremely difficult that must be for them. I've also considered the fact that there is still a lot of life left to go and that (as I am keenly aware) life can turn on a dime. But for now...I'm going to continue to count my many blessings and enjoy the life I've been given.

Incomplete older post from 2009

My son, Jordan, turned 18 last Saturday. It just seems amazing to me that he is an adult now. I still remember with complete clarity the day he was born. I remember taking him on his first cruise when he was only 4 and he would play with his Power Rangers stick-on book and always ask to be the line leader when we went somewhere. I still remember being in his first play with him when he was only 5 and he was the youngest orphan in the musical Oliver. It just seems like his childhood was a whirlwind and now he's 18 and ready to tackle the world on his own. Well...maybe he's not quite ready for that yet, but he's going to have to be! I remember how Jordan was always "Little Buddy" growing up and when I realized that I could no longer call him "Little" and had to just call him Buddy.

I'm so proud of the man he's becoming! I have a friend who is having a nightmare of a time with her 18 year-old son and it makes me realize how extremely blessed I have been to have had such an easy son to raise. He doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs, yell at teachers, lie or be disrespectful. Don't get me wrong, he has other imperfections that probably come from me, but those things seem so miniscule compared to what many parents go through with their kids.

Last weekend on his 18th birthday he had the lead in The Music Man. This role is probably one the most demanding roles (if not THE most) of any musical out there, and he nailed it! It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I surprised that I didn't get more emotional over it, but I think I've come to expect such things from Jordan. I also think it hasn't quite set in that he's going to be leaving home soon and going off to college.