Building scaled models...

I'm a bit surprised that I am able to log into my blog page in order to write this note while I am out at sea doing my job.  It is typical that these type of websites are blocked for use and in many ways I am usually incommunicado with the outside world.  Somehow, this time, I tried logging into the site that hosts my blog and was able to get in.  It would not surprise me that it is mostly a fluke and that in the next day or so I will get locked out for the remaining two weeks of my journey.  Still, I'll take this opportunity to write a few words and share a bit with you, my dear readers.

When my father was a young man, one of his hobbies was building model battle ships.  As a young boy I remember walking into my grandparents dining room and being amazed at the level of detail that was obvious from my amateurish gaze of a dozen or so models that stood solemnly locked away in a glass china cabinet.  Each and every one of the ships was perfectly glued and painted with so much care and detail that you could almost imagine these scaled versions of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to have been the real thing and somehow they were placed into a "shrinking" machine by some mad scientist.  I remember straddling one of the dining room chairs with my chin against the back support, gazing through the glass doors while my imagination would run wild with scenario after scenario of these magnificent ships out in the open ocean waging war against some formidable enemy.  To my surprise though, my father was more of an air man, with childhood and young men dreams of becoming a pilot which never realized themselves because of the simple fact that he did not have 20/20 vision.  Yet there was not a single model of an airplane in the display case of his childhood hobby.

As I grew up I too loved building scaled models.  I would spend hour after hour putting together every single airplane model my parents would gift to me whenever they could do so.  Antique airplanes, military airplanes, commercial ones too.  By the time I was 9 years old I must of already have built at least 50 different models.  Patiently cutting out each and every plastic piece, painting it with excruciating detail, gluing it, sanding it, and then retouching it with filler and more paint.  It was typical of me to sometimes get so excited about another model before I had even finished putting the decals on the one I was working on that it would sit in a corner waiting to be finished with several more in the same state of incompleteness.  Apparently it was not about seeing them completely done that excited me the most.  Instead it was the process, the challenge, the finding out how difficult it would be to put it together that drew me into this hobby.  I was once gifted a 747 model which I spent long hours putting together.  In those days we lived in Phoenix Arizona, where temperatures outdoors frequently exceeded 112 degrees.  After finishing the building process I ignorantly left the mode outside hoping the paint would dry quicker.  When I returned to check on it several hours later, the wings had curled up in the shape of donuts because of the outdoor heat.  It frustrated me for the length of time that it took me to drop it in the nearest trash can, probably because by then I was already inside building another one.

As an adult, I once tried sharing this model building passion with my brother who is 12 years younger than me.  On one of his visits to California, I thought it would be a good brother bonding experience to teach him how to build a model ship.  We bought the USS Arizona and set ourselves to do the best job we could at building it.  It took us days to cut out the pieces, sand the edges, paint them, and eventually glue and fill any gaps.  We were so proud at our accomplishment that we placed it on the dining room table for everyone, especially ourselves, to admire for a while.  The details were amazing and we had even taken the time to create any wires and cables out of melted plastic for greater realism.  One day after we had finished building the model, my then wife came back from the grocery store and without noticing what she was doing dropped one of the heavy brown bags filled with milk and other goods right on top or our fragile accomplishment.  At the moment it was so frustrating to see how so much work had simply come to its fatal end in such a quick instant in time.  After the momentary impact of its demise, again, just as in the past, I just grabbed all the pieces and dumped them in a trash can without hesitation.  The process of building the model with my brother was what held true value, not the model in itself.  Even though it represented our success in some material and physical way, the real evidence of what we had done was contained within us, in our sense of pride, in all of the brotherly bonding that took place during its creation.

It is only fit that today I sit deep inside the belly of one of these magnificent war machines writing this short post to you.  Within the past 25 years of my life I have been a part of these vessels in one way or the other.  Testing their radars, missiles, guns, torpedoes, and helping train the men and women that call them home for many months at a time is just part of what I do for a living.  The childhood hobby of replicating has merged with the adulthood responsibility of making things happen in real life.  It takes great men and women to defend and protect our freedom, without them who knows what kind of a country this great nation would be.  I understand that I am just one bolt, if at all, of this grand processing machine that keeps moving towards the future without blinking during its path.  So even though today, Saturday, I rather be in the total comfort of my own home, I do understand why I am here instead.  This is where I am supposed to be today and as much as I might rather be somewhere else,  we all have things that we do in spite of what we rather be doing because it is our job.

The incredibly loud sound of a helicopter landing and then taking off from the rear of this ship and just above my berthing has passed away.  The continuous rocking motion will not stop until hours after I have disembarked.  Some things are temporary in life, others not.  What we do with them when they are happening is what matters.  Years after my father passed away, his mother, my grandmother remarried and her life continued on.  As she sold the old house where my father was raised, without hesitation she disposed of the arduous labor of a childhood dream that was contained in each one of my dad's model ships.  It would of been great for me to have at least one to remember him, but the truth is that I have my memories instead which cannot be crushed by a gallon of milk or anything else.  What memories do you have that are so powerful that nothing and nobody can take away?  Do yourself a favor, keep the good ones and simply recycle the not so good ones.  I promise you that it is the right thing to do.

Dad

"That's heavy..."

Hearing news about something terrible happening at a distance has a completely different impact on me than when it happens in my backyard and close to home.  I imagine that it is probably very much the same when I post here some of the things that happen in my life.  As a reader, the farther you are to me physically or relationshipwise, the less it impacts you too.  Don't worry, I won't hold this against you since I understand too well how this process works.  When I was much younger, many news stories would cross my life leaving very little trace of their true importance or meaning.  Even close to home events like the passing of a relative, a car accident of somebody I knew, or a crime committed in my local community were in my mind labeled as "things that just happen."  I believe that the first close to home experience that truly touched me was the death of my father when he was just 44 years of age and I was an 18 year old teenager.  Interestingly, my father had already had his first heart attack when he was only 33 years young, and then two more throughout his life before he passed away, and even though the events were significant at the moment that they were occurring, I don't remember worrying too much about it afterwards.  His sudden death, however, felt as a paralyzing experience that brought my young adult life almost to a halt for what seemed forever.  Other relatives had passed away when I was younger without truly digging into my life in the same way that my father's death brought up inside me an awakening of the reality and finality of death.  Watching and experiencing first hand the emotional pain and suffering of my mother, sisters, and brother taught me an incredibly powerful lesson of how the death of someone that you love can bring you down to your knees in an instant.

Almost 30 years have gone by since the death of my father and to this day I still get emotional just thinking about it.  In those 30 years I have lost other relatives like my three remaining grandparents and also some very young cousins to breast cancer, lung cancer, and car accident.  Each one of these deaths has touched me deeply and taught me some lessons that I would rather not have to learn first hand.  Parents burying their children is a lesson that nobody should have to endure.  In my humble opinion it is the most devastating event anyone can experience in their lifetime.  I've also lost extended family and close by friends, some to accidents, some to drugs and alcohol, other to diseases, and worst of all to murder.  Every one of these beautiful souls holds a special place in my heart that only God has access to understand how it's affected me and my life.  Some years back I also experienced first hand the true devastation that the suicide of a teenage son had on a close to me married couple.  In essence, this kind of experience simply destroys every ounce of joy in any parent while putting their lives into a maze with no possible solution or exit.  Eventually the only way out of this crisis was divorce in order to each survive.

I apologize in advance for the somber tone of this post, but the truth is that there is no way this subject can be addressed smiling.  However, I must tell this story, and in my opinion you should read it...

Yesterday was a good day with my two sons.  As I arrived at my home after work my oldest son was waiting for me with the request for me to take him to a bookstore to buy the second volume from an author that he had just finished reading the first.  I truly enjoy getting into my car and driving around with my sons even if it is just for a few minutes hunting down something that they are interested in.  When I called my other son asking him if he wanted to go with us he was busy listening to some web cast and declined.  The 17 year old eagerly straightened himself up in front of a big mirror that lays on the side wall of the entrance of our home.  Just last weekend he got the first haircut in more than three years and his long dark hair now sits just above his shoulders instead of all the way to the middle of his back.  I am partial to liking him anyway that makes him feel happy, so long, short, curly, or straight makes absolutely no difference to me.  He had also gone shopping with his mother to a thrift store where he bought a few interestingly looking used long sleeve shirts, a pleasantly green one of which he was wearing over a dark t-shirt made him look very nice.  Of course, it would not be him without something on his head, so the final touch was a black fedora hat and some dark shades.  In my opinion, he looked absolutely smashing!  I would feel this opinion to be biased if it were not for the very pretty young lady that was at the register when we were purchasing the book that commented on how much she liked both, his choice of books, and also his shirt.  As we walked out of the bookstore I threw a tease by saying "dude, that chick was absolutely hitting on you!"  For which he replied, "she must be a hippie!"  I laughed both inside and out with the knowledge that he knew I was right, and also because of how non-challant he always is about things like this.  As she complimented him all he did was give her a simple no teeth showing smile, no words came out of his lips, and it was obvious that after I had made my comment the entire matter had not gone up to his head.  I really like that about him.  He always seems to be so content with whom he is, regardless of the entire world that surrounds him.

On our drive over to the bookstore I asked him if he had heard about the news of the missing girl in Moreno Valley California, which is just a few miles away from us.  Last week on Thursday, July 15th, around noon time a 17 year old teenage girl was abducted half a mile away from her high school while on her way back to a friend's home after her summer school classes.  Yesterday's local news reported that on Tuesday, July 20th, a badly decomposed body had been found among a grove of trees in a vacant field no more than two miles away from where she was abducted.  The next day, dental records were used to confirm that in fact it was the body of Norma Lopez.  As I told him about this tragedy I saw how the expression in his face turned somber and sad.  The only words that came out of his lips were "that's heavy."  Given the opportunity, we talk a lot and I am very familiar with most of the slang that he uses that is common to his age and social environment.  I have heard other kids using the "heavy" expression, yet to date I had never heard him use it in any of our conversations.  In a sense it took me by surprise, not because of the word in itself, but rather because of when he chose to use it.  My son is a very well read individual.  If you go back to some of my earlier posts you will discover that his love for reading began at a very early age and has never stopped.  He has an extremely advanced vocabulary and his reading and writing skills are off the chart.  In fact, even after over two years of barely attending any formal school, when he took the high school certification tests from the state he scored a perfect score on his essay and on the language arts section of the test.  I believe that his choice of words has a very significant importance and I tend to listen very carefully to what he has to say when we have our conversations.  Yes, the terrible experience that the parents, family members, and close friends of Norma Lopez are having to endure is very well described as "heavy."  The pain, the sorrow, the unjustifiable violence and needless emotional devastation caused by the death of this young girl is "heavy" indeed.  A burden that weighs much more than it should and nothing truly has the power to lift it off the hearts and minds of all that have been left behind.  When a body of a child is found decomposing in an open field so damaged that not even gender can be determined and dental records are necessary for identification purposes, indeed I agree with my son, this event is clearly so "heavy," in fact it is so massive in itself that even the space around it feels warped and the time has slowed down to an almost complete stop for all of those that are experiencing this hardship first hand.

Very few things have the power to lift us when we are in the middle of a tragedy such as death.  There are no words that are useful, there are no gestures that make it all better.  In fact, nothing that anyone says or does truly makes a difference to those that are in mourning.  The moment is so heavy that time in itself feels surreal, almost as if we are dreaming and at any moment are about to wake up and realize that nothing transpired truly happened.  Unfortunately and eventually our bodies give in to exhaustion and we collapse and fall asleep.  When we wake up we realize that it was not a dream, that we will never share a moment of life with the individual that we just lost.  The only thing that eventually keeps us going are the memories and the love we have nurtured in our hearts.  In fact, love is what carries us through these difficult moments that have no apparent meaning.  It is not just the love that we gave or received that lifts us off the hurtful path, it is also the love that we never had a chance to express, the moments that we had planted in our hearts for another time, another day, tomorrow.  This endless supply of moments that never came hurts much deeper than we ever dreamed they would, but they also eventually teach us how much those that are now gone really meant to us.

Needless to say, I ask of those of you who pray, to pray for this family that is now going through such a difficult time in their lives.  For those of you who don't pray, we'll pray for you too, so that you never find yourself anchored on the ground on your knees going through a moment like this without God's blessings.  Nobody should have to carry this kind of weight in their lives...nobody.

Dad

Broken...

I have but one request as I write this post for you to read...be patient with me today, I am all over the place with what seems to be an emotional roller coaster that I cannot jump off in mid ride.  As I struggle to reconcile what my mind is telling me with what my heart is yelling at me, I tread light on this difficult path of trying to be a good father without losing myself at the same time.  Nothing in my past has truly equipped me with the necessary tools to endure so much heart ache.  On the contrary, life has been too good to me, only allowing me to be learned in the lessons of giving into smiles that persistently engrave themselves into my face.  How cruel to be tagged by God to learn these lessons so late in my life.  Would it not of been easier if my heart was already hardened from other misery?  It just might be that only a heart that is padded with so many years of goodness is capable of understanding the reason for it all in the end.  Time will tell.

I have always wondered how far down the rabbit whole I will have to go in order to truly understand what everything that happens in my life truly means.  Every day that goes by teaches me something new that in one way or the other out dates many of my goals and dreams.  In fact, so many things affect me in so many different ways that I have seriously chosen to not plan too far ahead, but instead to live one day at a time.  I say this as a casual statement, yet the reality of this comment is deeply impacting and to a great degree sad.  I see so many of the people that surround me making grand plans for their future, for the eventual moments in their lives, and I can't help but feel cheated by the deck of cards to which my life is being dealt with day by day.  I want so bad to be able to write great news and wonderful happenings, but the reality of the moment does not span far enough to cover emotions such as joy and genuine happiness.  The longer I walk the road I have been given, the darker it gets and the lonelier it becomes.  It makes absolutely no sense to hold on to anyone else while I fall into this well, that would just make the moment even harder to bear because of the inevitable moment that comes when I will have to let go anyway.  Instead I have chosen to find whatever I need to survive in every single nanosecond of my existence.  Hidden in between the notes that compose the music of this journey I have become a master in hearing the tune that I need to be OK.  It is more like enjoying the silence in between the notes, rather than the music in itself.  Chaos intermingled with sorrow and confusion give themselves pauses from time to time that allow me to re-catch my breath, re-charge my heart, and most of all see a single point of light in the horizon to find my bearing.

Love is probably the most confusing emotion I have ever experienced.  It has the ability to fill up my cup just as easily as it does to completely drain it.  As the father of a child that carries with him an un-song melody of hope, I find myself daily wanting to grab him by the shoulders and shake him back into my endless caring arms.  I dream of moments of peace in which he has enough lucidity to be able to understand how much I care and how deeply it affects me when he makes choices that are scary and unhealthy.  Day after day these moments become less common and more sparse, making it harder and harder for me to find instances of hope to grab onto and slow down my free fall.  Every once in a while I get a chance to share a good moment, a positive insight, a healthy perspective with him.  Those moments feel as if a parachute opens up in mid air breaking the speed at which we are both dropping and giving us a chance to enjoy the view without the despair of the knowledge of a final catastrophic impact.  However, when the moment is over I feel as if I need to grab on to him again as not to allow him to free fall without me leaving each other alone and probably lost.  I now know that it is love that triggers my reflex to grab on to him, to try to stop what most of the time seems as an inevitable crash and nothing but hurtful outcome.  Love forces me to keep my eyes open as we fall down together, when instinctively I just want to close them tight and brace myself.  I am mortified by what every bone in my body is telling me of how much it will hurt if we both hit bottom together, yet I am incapable of letting go.  I have come too far to give up and find myself incapable of letting go and simply saving myself.  It is almost as if I have lost my primordial instinct of survival, and this reality scares me more than I ever thought it would.  I've always wondered what it would be like to be somebody else.  If I were different, could I let go?

I remember clearly as a young boy falling heads over heels in love with a young beautiful girl.  In fact, as far back as I can remember, during my Kindergarten days, I already liked this girl so much that the mention of her name simply made me blush.  Two years later, when my father returned from Vietnam, we moved to Phoenix Arizona forcing me to let go of my impossible love.  Two years after that, when we finally came back to Puerto Rico, she was still in the same school that I returned to.  Again, with the same infatuation that could clearly be called puppy love, my heart found its way back into falling for the adorable young lady.  Two years followed and when I was finally in sixth grade I built the courage to ask her to be my girlfriend for which surprisingly she accepted.  At my mother's place, my childhood home, there is still a photo album filled with pictures of some of the most beautiful moments a young boy could ever dream of.  The now flimsy and yellowish pages of this album are filled with the magic created by light bouncing off the beautiful smiles of youth and captured by the chemistry of silver halides absorbing these instances in time that where later turned into the old fashion paper goods that we call photographs.  In each image there is an endless supply of happiness, unadulterated love, and what in those days I could of only describe as butterflies in my belly.  How marvelous it is to sometimes go back home, open up this hidden treasure of pure joy.  I have been told in more than one occasion that I am incapable of saying this girls name without smiling and having my eyes sparkle at the same time.  I believe that to be true, I am not able to do anything but feel love for the moment in time in which I was so happy.  Unfortunately for me the young lady lost her father to a sudden heart attack and her mother eventually decided to move back to her original home in Spain, leaving my young boy heartbroken to pieces in the process.  Within weeks, what seemed like my entire source of happiness walked away to a place so far that it might as well been another planet.  Even though we corresponded in writing probably less than a half dozen times, I still have burned into my memory her foreign address which I can recite at will.

Love comes in many flavors, some of which can only be described as sweet as honey while others are as bitter as biting into a lemon wedge.  I am totally incapable of feeling anything less than adoration towards my parents, especially my mother that has given me so much to be proud of in my so many years of life.  The same goes for my two sisters and my brother, within their boundless source of caring I have been fortunate enough to heal so many of my current wounds.  I do not know what would be of me if it were not for their continuous words of hope and encouragement.  Twisted in the fiber of my sibling relationships are an infinite source of nourishment that keeps me going one day at a time.  So why is it that as a father I feel so alone, so desolate at times?  If those that surround me are constantly giving of themselves to fulfill my hunger to feel well, why does it hurt so much when I grab on to my oldest son and spiral down with him into the constant crisis or his ill mind?  If the relationships in my life are good, loving, caring, and giving to a great degree of satisfaction, why do I feel as if I was broken, damaged, and mostly defective?  There were several reasons for me to walk away from almost 18 years of marriage, any one of them probably good enough to convince me not to look back.  However, the main and most important one in my mind was because I felt alone in my efforts to fix what was broken in our relationship.  As the years go by I have found absolutely no reason to look back at my apparently selfish motivations.  Today, even though I am not truly questioning my reasons, I do question my personal contribution to our inability to reconcile.  Was I already broken, damaged, and defective?  If so, even if my ex-spouse would of tried to contribute to fixing what needed to be corrected in our marriage, would I have been capable of recognizing her efforts?

When I see how very little ability my very smart son has to recognize the error of his ways, it poses a grave question in my mind about my own ability to recognize what I might of done wrong in my own past or even now in my present situation.  It is not so much about recognizing mistakes since who is to say that any of it is a mistake at all.  No, it is more about realizing what I am truly contributing to making things better.  As strong as my love for my child might be, there is no certainty that it is the right approach to contributing to his well being.  It certainly is not contributing to my own personal well being!  I feel categorically affected in so many ways that I am incapable of putting it into coherent words.  I'll be talking about falling into a rabbit whole as quickly as I change the subject into falling in love at the age of five.  This can only mean that as I get dragged down the white water rapids of my life I am desperately reaching for any branch that might reach me from the edge of this turbulent river in hopes to save myself from my eventual destiny.  I am in fact giving into the effects of emotional exhaustion, knowing well enough that sooner or later I will again catch my breath and keep going for another round regardless of the outcome of this moment in time.

Ahhh, to smell her beautiful hair sliding through my fingers as we look into each other's eyes.  The rapid heartbeat that only comes once in a lifetime from the anticipation of a first kiss.  Love is a splendid thing when it brings with it the aroma of happiness and joy.  Love also brings with it the bitter sweet taste of a broken heart when a true love walks away due to life taking its course regardless of any and all good intentions.  Nothing is truly forever, including the safety net of an adoring parent.  Sooner or later it all finds a way of dispersing itself through all of those beautiful or even scary moments in time that summarize our lives.  I pray that I have a chance to witness the glorious moment in which God heals my son, maybe giving me what I need to heal myself too.  Feeling broken is nothing to be proud of, and makes very little sense when I am also trying to help my children.  This is why today I pray...

"God, take me into your arms and heal me.  Fix what is broken so that I am damaged no more and capable of helping my son."

Dad

Pure evil!

It is more often than not that in my life I have encountered goodness versus evil.  In fact, I have a hard time remembering past moments that could be defined by somebody that was actually in my life that had the intent of harming me on purpose.  Of course there are the sad moments in which I made mistakes that caused sadness in the heart of someone close to me, and vice-versa.  However, my childhood is mostly full of amazing memories of normalcy; my teenage years were full great friends and fun; and in the end my adulthood most definitely contains a great assortment of joyful, passionate, and exciting times.  That is not to say that there was not the occasional family drama, upset girlfriend, or broken heart, but in the end life has been good to me regardless of the so many challenges I have encountered being a parent.

On the night of the 4th of July I decided to stay at my home instead of heading out to be with friends, just to make sure that if my oldest son decided to invite his friends over to our home and pool that there would be some adult supervision.  I believe that the fact that I was there was the primary reason that he actually decided to head over to a friends home up the street to spend the 4th doing fireworks and sharing with his friends instead of at our place.  At around ten in the evening he came home on his bike and all seemed well, which pleased me to no end.  Then he said he was going back and would return later.  Being a holiday I figured I should probably not worry too much and let him be, so I just went to bed hoping that he would come back at a reasonable hour so I could eventually get some real sleep.  At 2:30 a.m. I heard the familiar sound of one of the back sliding doors opening so I got out of bed to make sure all was well.  Once again I found myself sadly disappointed when my oldest son staggered into the house drunk as a skunk.  Any and all of you that might of experienced dealing with a drunk individual already know that there is no reasoning or value to trying to make a point with them.  The details are now fuzzy because even though I started to write this post several days ago, now time has gone by and so much more has happened.  What started at 2:30 in the morning, eventually ended sometime around 7:00 a.m. when he finally crashed and fell asleep.  During those four and a half hours I followed my son in and out and all about in hopes that I could keep him from getting into any greater trouble.  At one point in time I followed him into an alley that he crawls into by a large water tank just a few homes up the street when he needs to be by himself.  I sat there for several hours listening to him babble a million words about nobody understanding the true essence of life and happiness.  When I would try to ask him questions he would get louder and seemingly upset, so eventually I just sat on the ground quietly and listened.

What impacted me the most that night was something I heard him say after he tried to strike me with his fist and missed by a mile on one of his walks out in the neighborhood.  I was merely trying to get him to come back home because it was late and I knew that if the police would drive by, or someone called because of his loud behavior, the night was going to get a lot longer and complicated.  As he eventually jumped into his mother's car which was following the drama behind us he said, "take me away from him, he is pure evil," making a reference to me.  I obviously did not take it personal, who in their right mind would take anything a drunk individual says personal during their incoherent babble?  On the other hand, what an incredible hurtful choice of words to call me "pure evil."  I have no doubt that in his mind, somewhere deep he truly does perceive my caring for him as some kind of evil manipulation.  Otherwise why would he have chosen those words to describe my otherwise calm behavior that night?  I have gotten plenty angry with him in the past, yet for some reason that day I was simply taking it all in strides and hoping to get the night over without significant complications.  This perception that he has of my caring for him could be one of the main reasons that while he is under the influence he gets so angry at me.  I love this boy so much, yet in his mind and probably in his heart he has chosen to cancel my goodwill and replace it with some misguided sense of hate.  If there is something that I have learned in my life, changing a way someone feels about you is probably one of the most difficult tasks encountered.  All it takes is one word or a single gesture to incorrectly assess the true intentions of someone that really cares for you.  Years of love, dedication, and caring, can all be cancelled out with a single planted thought into the mind of an otherwise amazingly smart individual.  I am in awe with the power of our minds.

After the 4th of July came several days of soberness followed by others of drunkenness.  Every time I am around him when he is out of control I find myself being more and more afraid of him.  Ever since he literally jumped me in May and I found myself with a fractured thumb and a great deal of sadness for his unprovoked aggressiveness, I have not been able to return back to being myself.  I have tried to be strong, to be unafraid, but the truth is that at the moment I am back to being damaged goods.  I not only fear for his erradic and compulsive actions, I also fear that if he gets violent I will find myself having to defend myself and possibly hurting him without malice.  I cannot recall a time in my life for which I have prayed more than the last two months.  During most of my moments of solitude, while I drive back home from work, I find myself inmersed in intense conversations with God almost on a daily basis.  Even though I have left my own personal anger for my circumstances out of my thought process, I cannot help but feel an inmense sense of sadness inside me.  I no longer question why things are happening, but instead I pray words of faith professing how God's blessings are just around the corner of my son's life.  I thank Him for taking care of us, for not allowing things to be worse, and I beg for a miracle in our lives.

PRAYER: "Dear God, I am ready for you to heal not just his mind, but also his heart and soul.  Turn me, and him into your instrument so that we can give testimony of your love and compassion.  Spare us now, heal us now, and bless us all the time.  I trust that You are already doing this even though I am unable to see it with my limited sight.  Give me faith to stay strong and on course.  Amen."

I ask my dear friends and all of you to please pray for us.  Do it with all of your heart so that God will have no other choice but to send his angels to take care of us.  I expect nothing less than a miracle soon.

Dad

Your luck has been completely changed today.

Last week was hectic, to say the least.  I got out of bed everyday at 5:00 a.m. and was already in my office by 6:00 a.m. supporting work with folks out of Japan.  It might not be a big deal if after putting in my 9 usual daily work hours I could just head home and chill, but the work I was doing kept me busy for almost 12 hours every day instead.  Add to it the typical 90 minutes total commute and you can easily figure out why splitting the remaining 10.5 hours between getting any rest and getting anything done around the house just aren't really enough.  Still, I'm not complaining because in today's economy having a good job is like having a vault full of gold in my life.  Still though, by the end of the week I was pretty much exhausted and ready to finally get some well deserved rest over the weekend.  Being such a hectic week at work also meant eating lunch in the office everyday in order to not get backed up with my job.  On Monday I had driven out to buy Chinese takeout and brought in to eat at my desk.  One thing led to another and I never did get to my fortune cookie.  Actually, it was not until Friday when I realized that in order to get out of work at a reasonable hour I was going to have to skip lunch all together, and as I scanned my office space I ran into the forgotten fortune telling treat.  I split open the plastic bag labeled "Gourmet Fortune Cookie" followed by six Chinese language characters, which I can only assume read "Eat at your own risk."  As I cracked the cookie the white strip of paper inside ripped in half.  I straightened out the two pieces and they read "Your luck has been completely changed today."  Instantly I laughed and pondered at the vagueness of the statement, which never actually defined if my luck had changed for better or for worse.  I also considered mentally that if I were a superstitious person, which I am not, maybe the tearing of the paper containing my written fortune probably meant that I had just cancelled my chances of good fortune accidentally.  I stashed the now two pieces of paper along with the rest that I keep under a huge desk size calendar for future amusement and proceeded to consume the dry fortune cookie that even though it proclaims to be of Chinese origin, actually comes from a factory in National City, Illinois.  I drank a few gulps of bottled water to ensure an expansion effect in my stomach would take place to carry me through the next few hours of work.

"BEEP...BEEP...BEEP...WAAA...WAAA...WAAA...BEEP...BEEP...BEEP..." the piercing loud sound of several smoke detectors and the fire alarm woke me up at exactly 5:27 a.m. Saturday morning.  Dazed I instantly jumped out of bed searching for clothes to put on while the exaggerated wake-up call filled the air mixed with the obvious smell of something burning close by.  As I walked out of my bedroom my youngest son walked right behind me querying why and what was going on.  I went into the kitchen thinking that maybe my oldest son had forgotten to turn off the stove or oven after cooking himself something the night before, but nothing was out of the ordinary.  My oldest son was sound asleep on one of the couches in the family room wearing headphones hooked up to his iPod.  As I walked over to him and told him that something was burning close by the room kept filling up with more smoke.  When I opened the access door to the garage from the dining room a curtain of smoke hit me in the face which did not allow me to see any more than one inch in front of me, the fire was obviously coming from inside the garage.  In hopes that I could get my car out of the garage I pressed open the huge metal rolling door and ran to my room to get the car keys.  Before I went out the front door it occurred to me to make sure my oldest son was out of the family room, but no such luck, he had fallen asleep again.  This time I shook him and told him "dude, the house is on fire, put on some shoes and get out now!"  This time he followed me and my other son out.  Enough smoke had cleared out of the garage for me to be able to see my car and I held my breath, rushed in, and drove it out quickly on to the opposite side of the street knowing that the firemen would need access.  When I got back one of the neighbors yelled over the piercing sound of the fire alarm that she had already called for 911 for help.  I dragged out my front yard garden hose, turned the water full blast, and one last time held my breath and went inside to add some water to the now obvious source of the fire, the water heater.  The fire had already consumed the 18 inch platform that originally sustained the water heater off the ground, and its weight had made it drop breaking the water pipes above which created a spectacular forward shower effect which probably contributed to my car not burning to a crisp.  I sprayed as much water on the now fire covered wall behind the water heater, but once I ran out of air I knew better to get out and not breath any unnecessary smoke.  As I got out of the smoked filled garage I went back to the garden hose water faucet, closed it, and went back next to my kids shivering from my now wet clothes in the cold morning air.  Five minutes later the street was covered with two patrol cars, four fire trucks, and over a dozen firemen trying to get a handle on the situation inside my home.

Three hours after it had all began everyone was gone and all that was left was a burned wall and water heater, and a pile of debris that the firemen had kindly made in front of my home.  As I stood in front of my home I suddenly remembered the message on that broken fortune cookie "Your luck has been completely changed today."  Interestingly I have decided that even though such a dramatic moment could be interpreted as a sign of bad luck, I honestly believe that I was blessed.  The entire week before this event I had been out of the house so early that chances are that I would of not been home to make sure my kids were safe.  As I look from the inside of my dining room area I can clearly see the charred fire line on the wall where the flames never breached from the other side by the narrow thickness of a coat of paint.  Exactly on the other side of the dark line and only one inch away are curtains, which would surely gone up in flames instantly had the fire consumed that single coat of paint.  Of course I am looking at all of this from the half full side of the cup, but truthfully, how else would I want to look at it and not expect to get totally depressed?  In my heart I feel blessed because I can clearly see that so many of the challenges in my life are actually stepping stones for me to grow.  Everyday that I am allowed to breath another day is proof that my job here is not done, and the same goes for my kids.  There must be something great in the future of my sons for them to still be here with me today.  After all, things can always be worse, much, much worse!  That is how I know that my sons and I are blessed.

Dad