War...and Peace, Part 5

If you've never planned a funeral before it pretty much goes like this: you cry your eyes out for about half an hour as you talk to the funeral director, you manage to pick out the day/time/location for the funeral, pick out a casket to bury your loved one in, and you somehow tell them enough information about the deceased so they can write an obituary (if you choose to have one). That's how it's supposed to happen.

For us, it was different from the norm because we were burying a veteran, so there was the added bonus of having a military funeral. Or so we thought.

We were informed by the funeral home that because my brother didn't die as a direct result from combat (i.e. - he wasn't shot or blown up overseas), that he was not eligible for a full military funeral. The problem with this is we wanted a full military funeral, and because he died from cancer that was proven to be a result of his service in the military, we felt that it was the least the government could do.

And so, it was time for the real battle to begin.

We made countless phone calls to every single person who had any say in how things are run in the state of South Carolina. We had friends of friends make calls to people who we thought might have connections to the inner-workings of the government. We had people posting to Facebook asking everyone they knew to call anyone they could to help us out, all to no avail. They weren't going to budge.

That's when we went on the news.

Someone in our community contacted the local news and told them the story, and they came to my parents' house to do a story on my brother and our fight to give him the funeral he deserved. They talked to my parents and my wife (I refused to go on tv because I couldn't bring myself to do it at the time) and aired the special the night before the funeral as a last ditch effort to convince the people in charge of the situation to make an exception for my brother.

After the news crew left, it was time for us to get ready for the wake, which is never an enjoyable task. It's even more difficult when it's one of your family members because that means you have to get there early to view the body to make sure everything is in order. That's the second hardest part of the process: the first time you see the body and know that it's not a person anymore.

Viewing the body was definitely an experience I will never forget for as long as I walk this earth. Seeing him lying there peacefully - knowing the personal hell he had been through for the previous 12 months of his life was finally over -  was strangely relieving to me. I could feel his peace, and for the first time - if only for a brief moment - I was okay with what was happening.

We buried him in his military uniform. We felt it was the best thing to do for him, because we felt that's what he would have wanted. One benefit to doing this was allowing everyone to see all the medals and badges that he had earned during his service, and having people who knew what each badge symbolized tell us what they all meant. We learned a lot about him through this, and we discovered that he had done a lot more for our country than we thought he had.

For example, we learned that he won not one, but two Purple Hearts. That's a big deal. It's an even bigger deal that he never spoke a word about them. It's a sign of his true character. He was more concerned about others to the point where he wouldn't even brag about himself when he had something worth bragging about. Not very many people can say that. (I sure as hell know I can't.)

The wake was inspiring to me when I saw just how many people showed up to pay their respects to my brother for his sacrifice and for his service in the military. I felt like I shook a million hands and hugged a million people that night. One of the most awesome feelings I got from being at the wake was from meeting a lady who said she saw our story on the news and felt compelled to come pay her respects to the family. It was an unbelievable feeling knowing that there still are people out there who appreciate the sacrifices that members of our military make each and every day, and that's one of the few things that helped me get through the tragedy of losing him. I knew that his death was not in vain, and it did bring a feeling of peace to my soul.

We left the wake and returned to my parents' house, and sometime shortly after we arrived we learned that arrangements had been made for a full military funeral. We were thankful to everyone who had joined together to help us get what we felt he deserved, and we were glad that we were going to be able to remember his life the way that we thought he would have wanted us to. (When you're planning a funeral, you'll take any small bits of relief you can get.)

We were also informed that there was a group of veterans who wanted to escort the hearse to the burial site via motorcycle, and even though my mother was uncomfortable with the idea at first (she didn't want to add any more attention to the funeral than it already had), we finally convinced her that it would be a good idea to include them. (Looking back on it now, I'm glad we did.)

As unusual as it is to say this, the funeral was absolutely beautiful. We arrived at the church for the first half of the service, and when we got out of the car we noticed two long lines of American flags leading up to the entrance. Each flag was held by one of the motorcycle veterans, and each veteran was standing at attention as we walked into the church. It was surreal. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life, and it's a shame that it took such circumstances as a funeral for me to be able to see it, but unfortunately that's the way it goes sometimes.

The first half of the funeral was the typical protocol that most everyone follows. There was a prayer, a few songs, a message about the deceased, and another prayer. When we got to the grave site, however, it was a completely different story.

If you've never been to a military funeral you are missing out on one of the most beautiful exercises known to man. They follow a strict protocol that is intense, respectful, honorable, and moving all at the same time. I've never seen anything like it before, and I don't think I'll ever see anything like it again. It was a beautiful day for a funeral (as macabre as that sounds), and luckily we didn't run into any major problems with the weather (aside from the sweltering heat that only the South can provide). There's a unique air of calm surrounding a military graveside service, like nothing else I've ever experienced before. And, as strange as it sounds, I felt at peace.

The 21 gun salute was breathtaking. Hearing the shots fired into the dense summer air knowing they were meant to honor and respect the life that my brother had lived and the sacrifice he had given sent chills down my spine that I still feel every time I hear the sound of a gun shot, even thought it's been a little over 9 months since the funeral.

It didn't become real to me until they lowered the vault into the ground. Up until that moment, it felt as if I were living in a dream that would eventually end. But, when they lower that burial vault into that cold pit of dirt six feet below the surface, the reality of what's happening hits you like a freight train, and all the weight of regrets that you had for things you'd done (or failed to do) starts to sink in. That's the hardest part of the process - the realization that your loved one is gone forever, never to return again.

It's a reality that I've been battling ever since the funeral, and it's a reality that I'm just now able to talk about (hence the long amount of time for me to tell this story). But, thankfully I'm at the point now where I can finally talk about it to an extent, because that's the first sign of moving on. I know that it's a process and it takes time and that I'm not going to be over this for a long while, and knowing is half the battle. The other half is going to be adjusting to life without him, because from time to time I still find myself wanting to send him a text message, or checking to see if he's on Facebook just to chat.

I know I'll never get to chat with him again (at least not in the physical sense), and that's the part that eats at my soul every single day. I've lost my best friend, but I know that I can at least take comfort in the fact that he's finally at peace. He's certainly earned it.

War is definitely hell, but peace is everlasting. My brother went through war, and because of that war was able to find his peace. Someday, I hope that I can too.

War...and Peace, Part 4

When cancer is involved, a person's health can nosedive in the blink of an eye. I witnessed this first hand as I watched my brother morph from the person who had an occasional bout with pain into someone who could barely get up off the couch without it being excruciating torture.

It was only a few days after he returned home after visiting me that I got a phone call from my mother saying that he was going to the hospital again. I knew it was going to happen. I could tell by the way he looked, sounded, and acted the week before that something wasn't right, even if he wouldn't admit it when I would ask him about it.

I don't pretend to know what anyone is thinking at any given time. I don't claim to be a mind reader, and I don't think that anyone really has the ability to read minds, even if someone tells you they are (and will prove it to you if you shoot them $3.99 per minute after dialing their 1-800 number). But, even though I couldn't read my brother's mind, I knew that he was troubled with his situation, and I knew that he was counting down his final days.

I could just tell in his general attitude that something was wrong, and no matter how many times I tried to get it out of him he wouldn't spill. I knew it was because he was scared of what he was facing, though I never heard him admit it. Either that or he didn't want to burden me. At any rate,  I didn't push him too hard because the last thing I wanted to do was push him away in the time when I felt that he needed me the most (or the time that I needed him the most - I'm still trying to figure out which way it really was).

My fears were confirmed by the phone call from my mother. He was going to the hospital again, and I knew it wouldn't be much longer before we were planning a funeral. It's hard to come to terms with something like this, but we had no other choice. The fortunate thing for us was we had a chance to adjust to it, unlike many who have to do this sort of thing on the spur of the moment. We at least had some time, even if we didn't know how much.

My brother tried to make things easier on my family by attempting to live his final days at home, but he just couldn't do it. He wasn't able to be comfortable at home, because home didn't have the 24-hour nurse assistance that the hospital provided. So, he decided to go back to the hospital. Because he's the kind of person who puts others before himself, he decided that he wanted to go to the hospital that's only 10 minutes away from our parents' house, instead of the one that he'd been staying at (which is 35-40 minutes away) to make travel easier on our parents. (Once again, he was concerned with others even though he was the one near death.)

I drove a lot of miles back and forth on weekends for almost a month. I had to. I knew that if I didn't do it I would live to regret it for the rest of my life. I was faced with the decision: What's more important - spending time with my brother or putting mileage on my car? It wasn't a hard decision to make. So, I drove 3 hours one-way every Saturday morning, and drove the same 3 hours one-way every Sunday afternoon for three weekends in July/August.

The first two weekends were alright because he was able to sit in the bed and talk, even though he was in excruciating pain because of the tumors. We were able to reflect on our past and the fun times we had together as kids, and we were able to genuinely enjoy those moments because this time we weren't just talking to take up empty space - we were actually reliving those memories together.

Looking back, I'm glad we were able to share those times together while he was in the hospital, because it helped me cope with the fact that he didn't have much time left. I needed all the help I could get, and his ability to maintain a positive outlook was one of the few things that helped me get through the whole ordeal. He may not have realized what he was doing, but he was comforting me even though it was supposed to be my job to comfort him.

The final weekend I went to see him was the hardest. He had gotten so frail that he wasn't able to do anything anymore, and the pain was so bad for him that he was in a constant state of numbness from the morphine that was running through his veins. I knew the time was near. If you've never been around someone who's dying, I can assure you - you know when it's time, and even though none of us wanted to admit it, it was his time.

On Monday, August 8th, he requested that all his friends come visit him so he could begin saying his final goodbyes. He decided that he would have the doctors turn off the limit to his morphine so he could rest peacefully until his clock ran out, and he wanted to tell everyone goodbye before he was gone. I remember hugging him and telling him that I loved him, and I remember him saying "I love you too bro." to me as he hugged me. I felt like I was hugging a complete stranger because so much of him had wasted away because of the cancer, yet I couldn't make myself let go. I knew it would be the last time I hugged him, and I wanted it to last forever.

Unfortunately, it didn't last forever, and I had to leave so I could come back home to return to work on Tuesday. I didn't want to leave, but I had to. I shouldn't have left, and I knew I shouldn't have left as soon as I got home Monday night. One of my biggest regrets is not staying when I knew I should have, and even though I was doing what I thought was right, my heart was telling me the entire time that I should stay. I wish I would have listened.

I was eating my lunch on Tuesday at about 11:45 AM when I got the call. I didn't even have to answer the phone, because once I saw the number on the caller ID - I knew. My mother said two words to me, and those two words fell on me like a ton of bricks.

He's gone.

That's it. That's all she was able to say. I barely managed to mumble out "okay, we'll be up later this afternoon", and I somehow managed to call my wife and let her know what was going on. I don't know how, but I also made three other phone calls to spread the word, and I left work and went home to pack. As soon as I pulled the suitcase out, I sat on my bed and wept uncontrollably. I knew it was going to happen, and I'm still not sure how I held out as long as I did, but somehow, I was able to do it.

I was fine on the drive up, because I focused my attention on driving. Focusing on the drive was the easy part. The hard part was when we arrived and I saw my parents for the first time. The only word I can use to describe it is surreal. I thought I was dreaming, and I thought that at any moment I would wake up and the dream would be over.

Unfortunately I was wrong. I wasn't dreaming. My brother had really lost his battle with cancer, a mere 11 months after he was diagnosed with the disease. That wasn't even the hard part. The hard part was still to come, because we still had to have a funeral - a place where we would have to say our final goodbyes before he was laid to rest. That's the hardest part of all, because of the finality associated with it. There's no turning back from it, and I would be lying if I said it wasn't the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

To be continued...

War...and Peace, Part 3

It is incredibly painful to watch someone you care about suffer, especially when you know there's nothing you can do to stop the suffering. I've been there, and I'm sure many of you reading this have been there as well, so you know just as much as I do that it's not fun at all. It sucks, and there's really no nicer way to say it.

I won't go into a lot of detail about my brother's post-surgery or the majority of his hospital stays, because I don't have first-hand information from a lot of those incidents because I live 175 miles away from my parents and the hospital he was treated at is even further away than that. I went to visit on weekends, but I wasn't able to be there every day like I would have wanted to be, so a lot of the details are fuzzy to me because I'm relying on second-hand information. But, I will hit on the major points and the stuff that I know, which in this story should be good enough because while the minutiae of his ordeal would be great, the major plot points will suffice.

After my brother's surgery he went through the typical recovery process that everyone goes through where he was miserable for about a week after the fact, with the worst part being that he was confined to a hospital bed knowing he couldn't go anywhere or do anything that he loved to do. Add in the discomfort of having hoses and cords coming from every other direction - including a colostomy bag and catheter - and it makes the experience even more not-fun. But, my brother took it in stride. He always took everything in stride. No matter what effect it would have on him, he was the same calm person on the outside.

After suffering through the post-op discomfort for about a week, he was able to finally go home. But, that didn't last very long, and he was back in the hospital after a near-death experience when his catheter stopped functioning properly. One of the worst feelings in the world is that phone call late at night from home that contains the words "ambulance" and "emergency room". Add in "almost died" and "barely made it" to the equation, and it's a phone call that will certainly scare the hell out of any normal person.

He endured several scares similar to that one over the next few weeks, and also endured the bad news that the number of tumors in his liver had grown, as well as the amount of tumors in his lung. The big bombshell came shortly after that, when the doctors told him that the tumor they had removed not only returned, but came back larger than before. So, a new round of treatment was planned, even though he secretly thought it wouldn't do any good. (He never admitted this, but I could tell it was how he felt about the situation.)

He did everything he could to enjoy life. People tend to do that when they know there's a clock ticking and it's going to stop soon. He didn't know how much time he had (the doctors told him about a year), but he knew that he was going to enjoy the time as much as he could. He made a bucket list and started doing things that he'd never done but always wanted to. (I think all of us would love to have this luxury.)

He made one final trip to Hawaii to see his fiancée before his treatment was scheduled to begin, and that's when things began to turn for the worst. I'm not going to go into a lot of details about what happened in Hawaii because 1) I don't know all the details, and 2) it's really none of my business. All I'm going to say is this: he found out that she wasn't being honest with him while they were apart, and the engagement was cancelled before he returned home.

It was his deathblow. He lost everything that he had left to fight for, and when he came home he decided to not take the chemotherapy because he wanted to enjoy the rest of the time he could instead of being sick from the treatments and only buying himself an extra six months of life. His thinking was "I'd rather enjoy six months than be miserable for a year if I'm going to end up dead either way". I can't say that I blame him.

After the Hawaii fiasco he started crossing items off his bucket list. He got body piercings and tattoos (and even paid for me to get one with him), and he started enjoying every single moment of life he had left. He came to visit me more so he could spend more time with me, The Wife, and our kids. We stayed up until 2 AM most nights he was there, and even though it made getting up the next morning very difficult, it was some of the best time we spent together because it was so real, and to him - it was a chance to escape.

Each time he would come visit he would stay for several days to a week, and I noticed that he was getting progressively worse each time he came. I could tell his time was near, and I could tell that it wouldn't be too much longer until he wasn't able to come visit any more, and unfortunately, I was right.

The last time he was able to come visit was in July of last year. He came for my birthday, and he was able to stay for a week even though he was sick most of the time he was with us. He would stay up all night because he was so sick, and he would only get a few hours of sleep during the day if he was lucky. It didn't change the way he interacted with us though, as he would still talk and goof off as if nothing was even wrong with him. (To this day I'm still amazed that he was able to do this. I know I couldn't have done it.)

One of the things I'll always remember about his final week at my house was the late night conversation I had with him when he started telling me things that he had done while overseas. I won't go into detail here because it's not my place to do so, but I will say that he did a whole lot more than just sit at a desk and type on a computer all day, which is what he led most of us to believe. The one thing that will always stick in my brain as long as I have one is the image of him looking me square in the eye and saying "If I would have known it would come to this, I would have jumped on a grenade when I had the chance."

That's some powerful stuff. If you hear that, it will send chills down your spine, I don't care who you are. (It certainly did for me.) It's one of the last images I have of him, because shortly after he left our house and returned home, things took a turn for the worst.

To be continued...

War...and Peace, Part 2

One of the hardest things a person can ever say and/or hear are the three words I have cancer. It doesn't matter how tough you are (or claim to be), it's one of those phrases that brings sadness to everyone involved (and even to those who aren't involved). It's real. It's heart-wrenching. It's sobering. Those three little words remind us of our own mortality, that our absolute appointment with death is closer than we may have originally thought, and it hurts like hell. It doesn't get any easier to digest after you've heard them, either. I can bear witness to that.

The image of a phone conversation with my brother in September 2010 still resides in my brain as if it were 5 minutes ago. No matter how hard I try to forget, I am constantly reminded of that exact moment when he broke the news to me.

I was waiting in line to pick my son up from school and suddenly I saw my cell phone ringing. I should have known something was wrong when I saw his number on the caller-ID, because he's not the type to just call me up to discuss the weather. He's just like me when it comes to talking on the phone (i.e. - we hate it). It's funny how brothers can be alike in so many weird ways, yet be totally different in others. But anyway, I digress.

I remembered that he previously told me he had a doctor's appointment because he had been abnormally sick for several weeks after returning home from Afghanistan, but I never in a million years would have imagined that he would have cancer. That's just not something that goes through your head when you get a phone call from your brother. I was expecting him to tell me something about where his fiancee (at the time) would be stationed after she completes her training (she's in the Air Force), but I never thought I would hear him telling me that he had cancer. He wasn't supposed to say that.

Talk about a bombshell. After he told me, I was in a daze - like I was in the middle of a bad dream and couldn't wake up from it. To this day I'm still trying to face the facts and understand that he really did tell me that and it wasn't something that I made up.

The hardest part was not knowing what the future would hold. There was a lot of uncertainty in regards to treatment options, quality of life, likelihood of survival, etc., and it was a very trying time for me and my family because we couldn't just "know". I often wished that I could look into a crystal ball and see that everything was going to be alright, but I couldn't. Knowing that I couldn't made it hurt even more.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to help. Feeling helpless doesn't make matters any better, because I'm the type of person who likes to solve problems. Approaching the unsolvable is something I prefer to avoid, and something that I'm not accustomed to. I was a fish out of water for most of the time after his diagnosis, and that bothered me.

It bothered me that I couldn't solve the problem. It bothered me that I couldn't do anything to make his pain go away. It bothered me that I couldn't do anything to make my pain go away, and I couldn't make my parents' pain go away. I wrestled with the feeling of helplessness for a long time (hell, I'm still fighting that feeling today), even though my brain knew that there was nothing I could do - my heart wanted to do something so bad it couldn't stand it, and it couldn't handle the reality that there was nothing that could be done.

The doctors gave us a glimmer of hope by telling us that he could go through a few rounds of chemotherapy and then have surgery to remove the tumors that were in his body*, and after that there was a chance that following a round of radiation treatment he could make a full recovery. They cited his age (28 at the time) as a benefit in his fight because he was young enough and strong enough to fight off the ill effects of the chemotherapy, and he was still young enough to have something worth fighting for.

* - He had tumors in his rectum, liver, and one of his lungs.

He managed to stay relatively healthy (considering the circumstances) during his chemo treatments, and he was scheduled to go through surgery in December to remove the cancer from his body. When it came time for his surgery, he was in good spirits (again, considering the circumstances), and even though we were worried beyond belief, we tried to maintain a positive outlook for him. (This is much easier said than done.)

While the surgery only took about 6-8 hours*, it seemed like an eternity to me and the rest of the family as we sat in the waiting room, anxiously awaiting updates from the surgeon. Hospital waiting rooms are like that though. They make it seem like time is at a stand still. You sit, and you sit, and you sit some more. Then you get up and walk around to ease your butt from all the sitting (and because you're going stir crazy sitting in the same chair for so long), and then you return to your seat and sit again for hours on end. Then, you look up at the clock and realize you've only been sitting there for fifteen minutes, even though you feel like you've been trapped in that chair for hours on end.

* - I have forgotten exactly how long the surgery took, but 6-8 hours is a fair estimate.

Finally, after what appeared to be about five days worth of time, the surgeon came out to discuss how the surgery went. The news was good, but not as good as we hoped it would be. The surgery went well in terms of he went in and came out alive, but the surgery didn't go so well in terms of the surgeon accomplishing his goals in the surgery. They were only able to remove part of the tumor because of extenuating circumstances they encountered once they opened him up.*

* - I'm not going to go into graphic detail, but it took them several hours to clean his bowels because they were so impacted due to the location of his tumor.

Because of the problems they ran into once they opened him up for the operation, they weren't able to remove the tumors from his lung and liver. They decided that it was best to get the biggest tumor out of the way, and they were able to take all of it out. The down side to the surgery was they had to set him up with a colostomy bag because of the tumor's location, but they were hopeful that it would only be a temporary setback until they were able to do a second surgery to completely remove the cancerous tumors.

Unfortunately for my brother, it wasn't temporary. But that was only the beginning of his struggles.

To be continued...

War...and Peace, Part 1

William Sherman was absolutely right when he said that war is hell. I know this first hand. No, I've never served in the U.S. Armed Forces, and I've never been on a battlefield except for various field trips I've taken over the course of my years studying the history of our great nation, but I can honestly say from personal experience that war is definitely hell.

I'm sure you're wondering how I can be so definitive about something I readily admit not experiencing first-hand, but I'm not talking about the kind of war you probably think I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the war with bullets flying to and fro as airplanes drop bombs over massive acres of land in order to take out as many enemies as they possibly can at once, all because the people being bombed believe in a different set of ideals than those doing the bombing. No, I'm not talking about that kind of war. Sherman was, however, and from stories I've been told by numerous sources who can say they've been in a war zone, I understand that Sherman was right.

War is hell.

But anyway, I digress.

The type of war I'm talking about is an emotional one. It's a war that I've personally gone through over the past one and a half years of my life, and I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt from my experience that war is absolutely hell. If you've ever encountered the pain and suffering that I've been through since last September, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Otherwise, you're just going to have to take my word for it and believe me when I tell you that I know what I'm talking about, and the crap that I've been through over the past year and a half truly is an emotional war, and therefore - per General Sherman - it is hell.

In case you're not aware of this emotional malaise that I am referring to; in September 2010, my brother (my only brother, mind you) was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how sick he really was, or how far the cancer had spread, or if the cancer was even treatable. I didn't know how much time he would have left on this earth.

(That's the scary part - the unknown. It's hard enough to deal with trials when you have the information at hand, but it's a whole new level of difficult when you don't have a clue what's going to happen next.)

Looking back, I wish I would have known that he would only have as much time as he did, because when you know what time the clock is going to hit zero you tend to be more prepared than you are if you have no clue what's going to happen next. Of course, knowing the outcome is considered cheating, because none of us are allowed the privilege of knowing what's in store for us at any given time. But, it sure would be nice to have the capability to look at a specific point in the space-time continuum and know exactly when and where the end will take place, because having that competitive advantage against death would make things a lot easier for everyone involved, and honestly we could use every advantage over death that we can get.

But enough about me. This part of the story is supposed to be about my brother. After all, he's the reason I'm writing these words at this very moment. Although if I were to be truly honest with you, I'm doing this for myself as well, if for nothing more than to help me cope with the events that have unfolded since his diagnosis.

Notice I used the word cope. I used that word because it's really all I'm able to do at this point. I'm finally to the point where I can make it a few weeks without having a breakdown, and I've finally accomplished the feat of sleeping throughout the night more than one night in a row, but I'm still in the "coping" stage. To be completely honest I'll probably never get past that stage, because I don't think I'll ever fully accept that he's gone.

They say that time heals all wounds, and that might be true. But, I do know that if it is true, it's going to take a lot of time. We're talking the "coal turning into a diamond" realm of time here. And, that's okay. It's perfectly normal as far as I'm concerned, even though I'm not exactly what you would call an expert on "normal".

(Okay, I'm making this about myself again, so I'm going to move on and tell my brother's story. Well, part of it anyway. If I tried to tell his whole story I would have to write a novel.)

My brother was a member of the US Army who did three tours of duty in Iraq and one tour of duty in Afghanistan. He was a member of the Special Forces group out of Fort Campbell, KY for the first three tours of duty, but then he was re-assigned to Fort McCoy, WI when he was sent to Afghanistan. Of course, if life were fair (which we all know it's not), he would have never went to Afghanistan in the first place. He had served his initial contract which included the first three tours of duty, and when it was time for his contract to expire he chose not to re-enlist because he wanted to stay home and finish getting his Bachelor's Degree.

The Army had different plans for him. They called him back three years later, and told him he was being sent to Afghanistan. One of the benefits in joining the Army (at least for them) is that they can call a soldier back into duty at any time up to four years after their contract expires. (However, they can only give a returning soldier one set of orders, and they can't keep the soldier for more than one calendar year.) Since my brother was within his four year "probation period" (for lack of a better term), he was eligible to be called back to service, and he was instructed to report for duty for his last year of service which included a tour in Afghanistan for 6 months.

His mission was to provide intel support to a group from Alabama (there's a joke in there somewhere, I'm sure), but that's all I know about what he was called back to do. He wasn't allowed to talk about it, because it was highly classified information (at least that's what he always said). All I know is he went to Afghanistan with 14 or 15 other guys from Alabama, and he served about 9 months time. He never went into a lot of detail about any of his assignments, and I knew that it was because he wasn't allowed to talk about them so I never really pressed him for information. I do know, however, that his job wasn't to just sit at a computer desk all day like he led most of our family to believe. (Looking back on it, I know he did this because he didn't want anyone to worry about him every day. But - even though he didn't want us to - we still did.)

Even though he didn't talk about his job that much, I do know that his one claim to fame is that he was a part of the group that tracked and found Saddam Hussein. He claims that not only did he get to question Hussein face to face, but he also had the pleasure of defecating in Hussein's personal toilet. When we asked him why he did it, he simply answered "because no one else from here can say they have ever done that".

It's an answer that I expected him to give, because he's always had a dry sense of humor. That's one of the many things that was so great about him. He had the uncanny ability to have a room bursting in laughter while he maintained a straight face that could win a game of Texas Hold 'Em with a Ten High hand. That's just how he was. It was incredibly hard to know if and when he was telling the truth or just blowing smoke because he always kept a straight face, but this is one of those times where I believe he was telling the truth.

I can see him sitting there on Hussein's toilet right now, smirking because he knows that he's going to have a story to share for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately for everyone, the rest of his life was a very short period of time. Much shorter than any of us wanted it to be, and - if you ask me - much shorter than he deserved.

To be continued...

Big Fat Slob

Yeah, you read that right...I'm a big fat slob. I hate myself sometimes for letting myself get this way. Why do we let ourselves go after we get married and have kids? Do we feel like we just don't matter anymore, or is there something else to it? Maybe there is something deeper involved that I just don't know about, but I've been letting myself go for the last 7 years now, and it's got me to the point where I'm nothing more than a big fat slob.*

* - Okay, I'll admit that I could be in much worse shape. Seeing shows on tv like "The Biggest Loser" make me feel a little better about myself, but it's still no excuse for me to be this big fat slob version of my former self.

Well dammit, I'm tired of being a big fat slob. I'm tired of being ashamed of how I look and feel now as opposed to 7 years ago. It's time for a change. It's time for the dreaded D word. It's time to actually stick to my guns, get off my lazy ass, and do what I've gotta do to lose weight. I'm sick of being unhealthy.

So, I'm going on a diet. Not the kind of diet where I don't eat anything at all, or some fad diet that everyone else is doing because Oprah, or Dr. Oz, or Dr. Phil, or any other whacko who has a tv show says to do; but the kind of diet that I can deal with and lose weight at the same time. I'm making some sacrifices (like chocolate, and ice cream...oh how I'm gonna miss ice cream), and cutting back on things that I consume too much of (soda and beer, for example).

Not only am I cutting back on the things that I eat/drink too much of, but I'm replacing them with things that I don't eat nearly enough. I'm taking my own advice that I usually give to the other big fat slobs I see every day, and I'm going to mix in a salad or two. (I'm curious as to how long I can do this, because as a general rule I hate salads. I've never understood the point of eating lettuce like I were a baby rabbit or something.)

I'm sure I'll have plenty to gripe about now that I'm doing this. (Of course, having something to gripe about and actually taking the time to gripe about it are two totally different things, just so you know.) Stay tuned for updates as this diet progresses. If I do happen to lose weight, I'll be sure to post pictures of myself to piss you off/make you jealous/make you want me/whatever the case might be. Or, maybe I won't.

You'll just have to tune in to find out.

Look ma, I got a tattoo!

Let me start by saying I apologize for the eternal space between blog posts, but I have been very busy and just haven't had the time to sit down and write anything. (I know, I know -- I should make time. I'm going to try really hard to, I promise.)

Anyway, like the title of this post says: I got my first tattoo yesterday, which is something that I never thought I would do. My brother came to visit me because he wanted to see about getting a tattoo for himself, and since he was going to be getting one I figured that now was as good of a time as any to get over my fear of needles* and get one for myself.

* - When I say that I'm afraid of needles, I mean that I am terrified of needles. I'm so afraid of needles that I won't even donate blood, so I never thought that I would have the balls to actually let someone draw on me with a needle.

However, I've gotta say that it didn't bother me at all once I sat down in the chair, and I barely even noticed that the tattoo artist was even drawing on me. She made a comment that she was "almost done" with my tattoo, and I was surprised that she was that far along, as I didn't even realize that she had been drawing on me as long as she had.

The worst part about the ordeal is the fact that it's starting to itch now, and I can't scratch it. I hope this doesn't drive me bat-shit crazy, because I don't want to be tempted too much to scratch it for fear that I could screw it up.

It feels good to know that I've defeated one of my long-time fears, and strangely enough I already want to get another one. Funny how that kind of stuff works out sometimes, isn't it?

By the way, in case you missed my Facebook post, here's a picture of my tattoo:

Reading vertically: Nicolas (left), and Natalie (right), the names of my two children.

I know it's not much, but it's my first one. I figured it would be best to go with something simple to start with, you know, just in case I ever got second thoughts and wanted to have it removed. (Thankfully I really like it, because I'd hate to have a permanent tattoo that I didn't like.)

Three weeks ago, I would have called you crazy if you told me I'd have a tattoo. Now, I can't believe I've waited this long to get my first one, and I can't wait to get another.

Funny how that kind of stuff works out sometimes, isn't it?

Livin' La Vida Loca

I hate how my life just keeps moving at such a fast pace and doesn't allow me the time to sit down, relax, and enjoy just one small second of peace and quiet. I guess having a family, a job, and other responsibilities will do that to you though. It sucks, because what I really want is a career that pays me a hefty sum of money to do what I love to do: sit down in peace and quiet with a pot of coffee and plenty of time to write about anything that I want to say.

Unfortunately, I don't have that luxury (and if you do, then I'm jealous). What I do have though is the luxury of a loving family, a decent job that pays me and allows me to have a house fully furnished with food and clothing, and a bevy of friends that I can count on for anything I could ever need. I don't struggle to pay my bills, I don't go hungry, I don't freeze in the winter or roast in the summer, yet all I can seem to do is complain.

Dammit why can't I just have fifteen minutes of peace?!?
Will someone please turn that off?!?
Leave your sister alone! That's hers, give it back!

Those are just a few of the quotables that I give off on any particular day. Sometimes, they're much harsher. Sometimes, I tend to say things that I don't mean to say, and after I've said them I regret it, but there's nothing that can be done about it because the words have already been spoken. One thing in this world that can never be taken back is a spoken word, so we have to make sure that the ones we do speak are worth keeping out there forever.

I know it seems like I'm doing nothing but rambling on and on about nonsensical crap, but that's what I do best. It's the ramblings that go on inside my brain day in and day out that keep me sane, and unfortunately I don't have enough time in my life to sit down and share them with the world, because if I did I would (I promise).

Ok, I'll be completely honest. I guess if I really wanted to I could make time to share my thoughts with the world. After all, who needs sleep, right? Well, I do actually. And, you do too (whether you want to admit it or not).

But anyway, back to the point. I hate that my life is moving along at the speed of light and there's nothing that I can do to stop it. No matter how hard I try to avoid it, I'm going to get older, my kids are going to grow up (God help me when they do), and life will go on. I do hate that I don't have the luxury of being able to just take a break from life and the sorrows and struggles that go along with it, but at the same time I believe that if I were given the opportunity I wouldn't know what to do when I had the chance.

You know the old saying: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Well, I think that holds true in my life. If I were granted this wish of peace and serenity by some magic genie and had just 15 minutes to sit down by a fire with nothing but a cup of coffee and my thoughts, I know exactly what my thoughts would be.

Are my 15 minutes up yet?
How much longer do I have to sit here?
Can I get up now? I have stuff to do.

If you find yourself in the same boat as I am in, my advice to you is to just do what I've decided to do: embrace the life you have, because it's the only one you're going to get and you may as well eek every ounce of enjoyment out of it that you can.

Otherwise, you're going to look back one day and regret that you allowed the fast pace of a day-to-day routine get the best of you, and you'll wish that you could go back in time and re-live those moments so you could experience them from a different perspective, but unfortunately you won't be able to do that, and all you'll have left are the memories of what could have been. Don't let that happen.

Don't live for what it could have been, live for what it is.

All about me

A list of things you may or may not know about me.*

* - It will probably be things you don't know about me, otherwise there would be no point in sharing them with you unless I just wanted to add a post to my archives.

1. I'm deathly afraid of heights, to the point where it takes everything within my being to climb a ladder and get stuff out of the attic in my house without freaking out.
2. To make the heights thing even weirder: I'm not afraid to fly in an airplane.
3. I'm also gravely afraid of hospitals. They just weird me out. The only two times I've spent more than an hour visiting someone in a hospital are when my two children were born (and I only did it then because I didn't want to face the consequences).
4. I like ketchup, marinara sauce, and tomato soup; but I don't like uncooked tomatoes.
5. I also don't like sour cream, but love sour cream & onion potato chips.
6. I give the impression to some people that I'm a pompous asshole because I'm not very talkative, but in reality I'm constantly worrying that I'm not well-liked, and feel that my voice isn't worthy of being heard. I struggle with this daily.
7. I hate talking on the phone, and will generally do anything I can to avoid it. I make an exception to this rule for a very short list of people who I can talk on the phone with for hours on end.
8. When I was younger I had the hots for Jesse Spano from Saved By the Bell. My crush on her lasted until the caffeine pills episode, which made me afraid of her. (I'm so excited...I'm...so...scared... I'm scared too Jesse...of you.)
9. I shave my head because I have the same hairstyle as Screech from Saved By the Bell when I let my hair grow out. (Yeah, I just made two SBTB references.)
10. I still watch Saved By the Bell if I find it while channel surfing and there's nothing else on at the time. (That's three SBTB references, if you're scoring at home.)
11. If I like a movie, I can practically recite it after watching it once. If I really like a movie, I watch it repeatedly just so I can recite it while watching it.
12. My two favorite comedies to watch repeatedly: What About Bob and Happy Gilmore. My favorite non-comedy to watch repeatedly: The Shawshank Redemption.
13. I didn't learn how to drive a manual transmission until I was 28 years old, and I only learned because my grandfather gave me his pickup truck before he died and I wanted to drive it in memory of him.
14. I like to drink alcohol, but I've only been drunk twice in my life. I don't like to be drunk because I like being able to maintain control of my actions.
15. My favorite mixed drink is Amaretto Sour, but my favorite spirit is rum (preferably Captain Morgan Spiced). My favorite beer is a tie between Sam Adams Boston Lager and Magic Hat #9. My favorite beer to drink in large quantities is Bud Light.
16. Though I like to drink, I've never tried drugs, and I don't have any desire to try them.
17. As much as I like to drink alcohol, I like to drink coffee even more. I drink at least 6 cups of coffee per day, and sometimes I drink as many as 12.
18. I love the idea of blogging about my personal life and feelings, but I'm afraid to blog what I truly feel because I fear that anyone who reads it will think it's stupid and will make fun of it, causing me to never want to write about my personal life again.
19. I want to write a novel, but I'm afraid to because I'm afraid that no one will want to publish it, and I'm afraid that it will be a complete and utter failure, ruining my dream of becoming an author when I grow up.
20. I'm obsessed with collecting ink pens. I have a collection of pens that I never use, but can't throw them away because I'll just go out and buy more.
21. I took two years of French in high school, aced the French entrance exam in college, and took one semester of French in college (because I needed an elective), and can't remember any of it, except for the easy stuff that 5th graders know (hello, counting to 10, etc.). I regret allowing this to happen, but I'm too lazy to relearn the language.
22. I'm obsessive compulsive about 96.3275% of things I do.
23. I've gained 60 lbs. in the 6 years I've been married. I keep telling myself (and my wife) that I'm going to go on a diet and lose weight, but I always cave and end the diet within a week because I'm too addicted to chocolate and ice cream.
24. I have a very low tolerance for idiocy, especially in traffic. If other drivers could hear the things I say to them when they drive like morons, I probably would have been run over several times by now. Knowing this doesn't change the things I scream at other drivers when they drive like morons.
25. I am interested in politics, but I don't like talking about it with others, because most people take political issues way too seriously. I feel the same way about religion.

Well, that's all for now. I figure it's best to stop at 25 since it's a nice number. In the future I may expand on this list, but I think this will suffice for the moment.

Feel free to comment with any thoughts on this list or to add any quirks of your own.

New directions

When I created this blog as a substitute for my old one that was destroyed by the blogger monster, I fully intended for this to be a place where I could come and express my inner-most thoughts and feelings on anything I felt like talking about. This place was supposed to be my therapy session, my one place where I could go to remind myself that it's okay to feel the way I feel, and to understand that it's okay if I'm slightly screwed up in the head -- which, the severity of this could be debated, I'm sure -- because I'm not the only person in the world who's screwed up in the head, and there are a lot of people who are screwed up a hell of a lot more than I am.*

* - If I tried, I'm sure I could name at least five people right off the top of my head.

It amazes me that when I sit down and really think about myself and this blog, I realize that I have been too lazy to do my favorite thing: write.* Why is that? Is there something wrong with me? (Don't answer that.) What could possibly make me not want to do something that I absolutely love to do? I mean, I know that lately I've had a lot going on that has prevented me from having a mindset to just sit down and write, but that mindset doesn't really apply here because this blog isn't topic specific. I don't have to write about sports, or the Panthers, or music, or movies. I don't have to write on a specific day every week, and I don't have to keep a mandated schedule that forces me to come up with something even if I'm not really in the mood to write anything.

* - Okay, it's not my FAVORITE thing to do, but it's in my top-5.

When I take away the veil and look deep into the recesses of my soul, I do see where my problem lies. I've been putting too much stress on myself to write about specific topics (i.e. - Panthers football). It's gotten to the point where talking about the Panthers is depressing me and making me hate writing, and it's not just because they suck right now -- don't get me wrong, that has something to do with it, but it's not the whole reason -- but it's more of a sense that I don't want to be restricted to just writing about one thing all the time. I like being able to freely discuss whatever is going on in my head, and I like being able to just be myself on paper. I haven't allowed myself to do that lately, and it's been slowly eating away at my soul until I finally gave up on writing altogether (as I'm sure you've noticed).

I did some reading the other day and came across this blog that really spoke to me. (Thanks, -A, I really appreciate your inspiration.) After reading it, I realized that I need to get back to where I used to be, and get off my lazy ass and write what I'm feeling without trying too hard to restrict myself to a topic, because I've learned that when I do that I end up being miserable when I can't come up with anything to fit into the guidelines that I've created for myself. I'm trying too hard to control everything, when I should just go with the flow, and it's making me miserable.

There are a lot of things in life that I have no control over, and I have to learn how to accept that. One of my biggest flaws is not being able to handle a situation if I can't do anything to change the outcome. For example, my brother has cancer, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it other than give him my support. It kills me to know that I can't take the pain and suffering away from him, and it frustrates me even more to know that I can't do ANYTHING about it.

There are only two things in this world that I can control. The first is my outlook on life, and the attitude that I choose to have each and every day when I wake up to go through my daily routine. I can also control how I will approach this blog, which will be with a free mind and spirit from this moment forward, and I will use this blog for the purpose that was intended when I created it: a place to come share what's going on in my mind, and a place to unwind and be myself with no reservations.

If I can't do that, then what's the point in writing anything at all?

Three Little Words

It's amazing how some of the most important messages that can be communicated between people only require three little words to get the point across. It baffles me how the English language can be so expansive, with hundreds of thousands of words, yet all it takes is three words to make a profound statement. Sometimes those three-word phrases give joy, such as "I love you" or "It's a girl", and those three little words light up hearts brighter than the eastern sky.

But other times, the three little words bring pain, sorrow, and uncertainty.

You see, there is one particular three word phrase that no one should ever have to hear from anyone. Words that do nothing but cause hurt. Words that destroy families. Words that kill.

If I had it my way, this three word phrase would be forever banished to the depths of hell, never to return to the surface where they can inflict never-ending pain upon those who hear them.

Three little words.

I have cancer.

It's real. It's heart-wrenching. It's sobering. Those three little words remind us of our own mortality, that our absolute appointment with death is closer than we may have originally thought, and it hurts like hell. It doesn't get any easier to digest after you've heard them, either. I can bear witness to that.

The image of a phone conversation with my brother last week is still burning in my brain as if it were 5 minutes ago. No matter what I do to distract myself I am constantly reminded of that exact moment when he broke the news to me.

Last Thursday, I was sitting at work and suddenly I saw my cell phone ringing. I should have known something was wrong when I saw his number on the caller-ID, because he's not the type to just call me up to discuss the weather. He's just like me when it comes to talking on the phone (i.e. - we hate it). It's funny how brothers can be alike in so many weird ways, yet be totally different in others.

Anyway, I remembered that he previously told me he had a doctor's appointment because he had been abnormally sick for several weeks, but I never in a million years would have imagined that he would have cancer. That's just not something that goes through your head when you get a phone call from your brother. I was expecting him to tell me something about where his fiancee would be stationed after she completes her training (she's in the Air Force), but I never thought I would hear those three little words that he had to say.

Cancer? How can he have cancer?

Talk about a bombshell - I'm still not over the effects of that conversation. Ever since he told me, I've been in a daze - like I'm in the middle of a bad dream and can't wake up from it. Perhaps I haven't quite wrapped my head around it yet, or perhaps I've accepted it and moved on, without even realizing I've done so. I do have a tendency to compartmentalize everything - have I already tucked this away in the back corner of my mind as a coping mechanism, or am I still in shock and will have a total meltdown when it all sinks in?

I have no freaking clue.

The hardest part is not knowing what the future holds. There's still uncertainty in regards to treatment options, quality of life, likelihood of survival, etc., and it's destroying my soul because I can't just "know". Sometimes I wish I could look into a crystal ball and see that everything's going to be alright, but I can't. Knowing that I can't makes it hurt even more.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help. Feeling helpless doesn't make matters any better, because I'm the type of person who likes to solve problems. Approaching the unsolvable is something I prefer to avoid, and something that I'm not accustomed to.

What I do know is that I have a long road ahead, because not only do I have to travel down the path of the concerned relative who doesn't know what lies ahead, I also have to pick my brother up on my shoulders, and carry him through the fire.

Three little words.

Yes, I believe.

A very touching video

I found this on Facebook, and it was too good not to share.

Sometimes, You Tube is used for the greater good of humanity, instead of being used for a crap-load of stupid videos for our entertainment. (Of course, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the stupid videos for entertainment, but it is nice to see a real heart-warming video every now and then.)

This video is a compilation of families being surprised by loved ones returning home from military service. Unless you have a heart of stone, you might want to have a tissue handy. And yes, I cried watching this video, and I'm man enough to admit it. (Having family in the military makes it more meaningful to me personally.)

I truly hope you enjoy watching this video as much as I did. The part that gets me the most as a dad is the part with the little girl sitting on Santa's lap, because she is about the same age as my daughter, and it hit me in a different way than most of the other scenes did.

Wow, has it really been that long?

I moved into my new house over a month ago, and I just realized today that I haven't posted anything here since the day that I moved.

Time flies when you're having fun... (Yeah, right.)

Oh well, I can't go back in time and re-do everything so that I can post every other day and talk about all the interesting things that I've seen/heard/done since I moved, so I'll just chalk that up as lost time and move on.

Of course, I haven't really seen/heard/done anything of interest anyway, so it's not like I would have that much to talk about.

Moving sucks. Plain and simple. You take everything you own and pack it up into a million boxes, then you move it somewhere else so you can unpack those million boxes and put everything into a different place. It's not the sort of thing you want to do all the time. And, even though I'm sure you already know this: You never truly know how much crap you own until you have to move it.

Seriously.

The one bright side of the move is that now I get to stare at a beautiful 42" LCD television while I'm wasting my life away on the couch instead of accomplishing things that need to be accomplished. And I'm okay with that, because it's a nice friggin' tv. I've been used to watching a 27" tv in standard definition because that's all I've ever been able to afford, but when my wife and I bought our house, we came to the realization that it was time for us to treat ourselves to something nice.

Hell, we're going to be in debt for the next 30 years anyway, so what's another 600 bucks going to matter in the grand scheme of things?*

* - That's really all the convincing it took for us to buy the tv, I'm not making this up.

I guess if there were a point to this nonsense, it would be to stop worrying about the future, and just live in the present. You're not guaranteed to even be here in 30 years, so why worry about what might happen that far down the road? Live today, and buy that tv. You'll be glad you did. Especially when you see your favorite show in HD for the first time.

Moving Weekend

No, I'm not switching to another blog platform, so you can put the pitchforks down.

The title of this blog is literal, as my wife and I are moving into a new house this weekend. So, until the cable company comes to our new house and installs internet service, I will be off the grid and unable to read/write/comment on anything.

Don't worry, I will return to the blogosphere once I have internet access again. In fact, I might even blog more because I won't have so much weight on my shoulders from the home buying process and will have more time to sit and think of things to write.

Unless something major happens, I should be back online in a week.

P.S. I hope you all have a happy 4th of July, and please remember to be responsible while celebrating. If you feel the need to consume alcohol (don't we all?), please designate a driver (preferably one who isn't going to be drinking), and please avoid the use of any fireworks while inebriated (trust me, it's not a good idea).

Time flies when you're super busy

I know, I know -- I promised I would write more.

Before you call me out, at least allow me to explain: I've been extremely busy. The wife and I are in the process of buying a house, and with all that comes the constant conversations with mortgage brokers, home builders, inspectors, etc. and the numerous headaches that go along with the process of buying the house, waiting on a closing date (which we're still doing, by the way), and getting prepared to move all of our stuff (my least favorite part of the whole process, because you never realize how much stuff you have until you have to move it all into a new place). So, needless to say, I've barely had time to think, much less sit down and write.

But I at least wanted to take some time to write something, if for nothing else but to add to the archives to show that I didn't disappear from the face of the earth during the month of June, 2010.

Hopefully I will be completely moved in by the end of next week, so I can get back to living an abnormal life, and hopefully I can be inspired to sit down and type out some more thoughts on the abnormalities of my abnormal self.

But first, I've got some more packing to do.

This is Water: an in-depth outlook on life

The text of this post is taken from a Wall Street Journal article on the life and death of David Foster Wallace (the author of Infinite Jest), written a week after he committed suicide. The text that I have posted is from a commencement speech Wallace made at Kenyon College in 2005. A friendly word of advice: If you take the time to read this -- don't skim over it, or you will miss the point of the article. I have also broken some of the text up to make it easier to read. (If you are not familiar with DFW's work: he can get quite wordy at times, to the point where it is difficult to follow along.)

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If at this moment, you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.

Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude -- but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense.

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth.

Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real -- you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues." This is not a matter of virtue -- it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default-setting this way are often described as being "well adjusted," which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphal academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default-setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head.

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: "Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master." This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in, day out" really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home -- you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job -- and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket.

It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: You have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the ADHD kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day-rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.

Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your check or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etcetera, etcetera.

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid g-d- people.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default-setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just twenty stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks, and so on and so forth...

Look, if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do -- except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.

The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: It's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am -- it is actually I who am in his way. Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious or painful lives than I do, overall.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line -- maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept. who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.

Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible -- it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important -- if you want to operate on your default-setting -- then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars -- compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship...

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.

On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it.

But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.