There are many blogs out there. Many. And I certainly don’t have enough time (or desire) to read them all. Have you ever come across a post that made your day? A post that you wished everyone would read? The monthly Perfect Post Awards let you showcase your favorite post of the month, and lets the author know that you appreciate his or her work.
I’m never one to laud myself; I prefer to let others do it for me. Jeremy at Two Okapis has graciously selected my DadBloggers post, The Penultimate Sacrifice, for this month’s Perfect Post Awards! Nothing I’ve ever done has been perfect (except parallel parking), but it’s the name of the award; who am I to argue? A society must have rules, after all.
Thanks, Jeremy!
Be sure to read the other winning posts, and contact Lucinda or MommaK (the founders of ‘A Perfect Post’) if you’d like to participate in July’s awards.
On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
‘My wife and I are expecting our first child (a girl) this October. Mood wise, I’m veering between excitement and abject horror. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of literature out there aimed at new fathers that isn’t “religious” [read: Christian] in worldview. I’ve been enjoying Armin Brott’s The New Father but I’m interested in what other dads (new or otherwise) have to say about this amazing life change. Any advice, practical or resource-orientated, would be greatly appreciated.’
‘Religious worldview’? Nooooooo! Seriously, though, there’s been some good, practical advice offered so far. Reading MetaFilter hurts my brain, but eye-strain is a small price to pay for solid fatherly advice.
Remember, always seperate the wheat from the chaff.
As Jerry Seinfeld once said, ‘I have a tendancy to get chilly.’ Poor circulation, thin blood, global warming, whatever. I don’t know why. It’s especially true when I’m sleeping, even during the summer. I need a blanket when I sleep; Kelly’s this close to making me use the spare bedroom.
Ian’s a furnace. He just radiates heat; remember Firestarter? I always check the doorknob before entering his room. The glow-in-the-dark stars covering his ceiling actually twinkle. He’s a very exothermic child.
Part of the problem is that his bedroom is quite small, and has poor air conditioning and circulation. We’ve compounded this problem by upgrading him to a lofted bed with a heavy, canvas tent. But even in the depths of winter, his head is still bathed in sweat after falling asleep in the car.
Yet he insists on blankets. Sometimes two. St. Louis gets horribly muggy in summertime, but Ian just can’t do without his thermal coverage. Right now his bed has a kingly blanket: red velvet lined with white, spotted fir. (We bought it at IKEA before he was born, and before his love of pirates.) He must have this blanket, or everyone will suffer the consequences.
Last night, after we’d put Ian to bed, I realized that I’d forgotten to take him to the bathroom. This comes with its own set of bleary-eyed consequences. I went to wake him—it’d only been an hour—and he was drenched. From heat to foot, he was one long, sweaty, sopping mess. After less than an hour of sleep! And he seems to enjoy this!
If anyone sees Drew Barrymore, tell her to give me a call. I have questions.
Names are largely functional, in our home. They’re used to get someone’s attention, or as a point of reference.
‘Hey, Ian.’
‘Ian!’
‘Ian, stop doing that!’
‘Kelly, will you please grab Ian?’
‘I can’t believe you did that, Ian.’
Middle names are strictly for shock value. Other than that, it’s ‘Hon’ or ‘Honey’ or ‘Kiddo’. Obviously Ian’s pseudonymns have been far more creative: ‘Fatty Lumpkin’, ‘Fatty’, ‘Eener Beaner’, ‘Eenie’, ‘Professor Fussenberg’. Lately I’ve gone the route of Prince and have started referring to Ian using an exasperated sigh.
In general, kids first come to know their parents as ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’, though milage may vary. Ian has learned our names, but he can’t say them without laughing. To him, the whole concept of ‘Daddy’ being called ‘Jared’ is preposterous. How can Daddy be anyone but ‘Daddy’?
But Ian’s always game for something new. He listens, closely and well; he also loves to pretend. ‘You okay, honey? It’s a beautiful day, honey!’ ‘Honey’ is an easy one, though.
‘I love you, feet hurt!’ Until then, I’d never realized that Ian’s Grammy calls him ’sweetheart’.
We’d just spent a nice evening walking around the Grand Basin in Forest Park, holding hands and enjoying the unseasonably cool weather.
We sat on a bench to rest, the sun on our faces; Ian was dancing circles in the gravel path. On the back of the bench was a plaque that read, ‘For All the Talks with Nana’. I looked at Kelly, and a breeze from across the pond caught her hair. I put my arm around her, and kissed her on the cheek.
‘I love you.’
She turned her face toward me, and pointed over my shoulder. ‘Hey, that dog can do tricks.’
[As William Rang lay dying, his grandson was just coming into the world. This is the story of how they met.]
On May 10, 1968, my dad walked into the grade eight classroom of Emmanuel Christian School in Oshawa, Ontario, smoking a cigar. He put one leg of his plaid polyester suit up on a desk and told his students that he’d just had a son.
Years later, they still recall how he beamed.
My dad, William Rienk Rang, was a joyful man. He was the father of four beautiful girls and a son, a dedicated teacher and principal, a musician, a children’s author, and a preacher. At the end of every day, he thanked God for all God’s many blessings.
Sandy and I were expecting our first child. When the labor pains first struck, we were on the highway an hour away from the Oshawa hospital.
As I roared by the other drivers, Sandy sheepishly held up a handwritten sign that said ‘IN LABOR.’
We got to the hospital and checked in. As soon as Sandy was comfortable, I went to tell my dad we’d arrived.
It was 1995 and I was getting married. We were sitting on the couch when I asked my dad to be my best man.
He paused and said, ‘Thanks, son. But my place is with your mother.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘But as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one best man.’
Later that night, my dad read from the family Bible in that deep, rumbling, comforting voice of his. I always marveled at the way his strong, thick-veined hands held the Bible like a tiny, precious thing. Like a bird.
At our wedding, a good friend acted as my witness. My parents sat in the front pew, smiling.
I pounded my way up the stairs of the hospital to the eighth floor. I could feel my thighs burning as I took two steps at a time.
My dad was lying propped up on some pillows. My sisters were there with him. He hadn’t spoken or moved in two days.
But when I came into his room, he turned to me and said in a clear voice, ‘Where is your wife?’
I said, ‘She’s in labor. We’re going to have a baby soon. I have to go now, OK, Dad?’
His eyes lit up and he said, ‘OK! OK!’
For minutes afterwards, he kept repeating ‘Baby, baby!’ to himself.
It was 1998. Sandy and I had been married for just over two years. We were visiting my mom and dad in Dunnville, and the evening meal had just ended.
My mom took the Bible down and handed it to Dad. He shook his head. My mom had tears in her eyes.
‘He can’t read it,’ Mom said. ‘He can’t remember how to read.’
My dad just shrugged and silently looked down.
When I was little, my dad would make up bedtime stories. I got to pick the main character, a setting, and a challenge facing the hero. Then, in the dark space beside my bed, I’d hear his voice rising and falling and racing with the action.
I could never sleep afterwards. At least not right away. His stories were too good.
At first, Dad’s Alzheimer’s progressed slowly. He’d lose things or forget names. But he was good at covering for his lapses. Then he took a rapid turn for the worse.
Dad was admitted into the Oshawa hospital in January 2004.That night, he swung his fist at my sister and swore at me. The nurses loaded him with sedatives, but he couldn’t calm down.
I walked back to my car sometime after midnight.
I thought about my dad—how he had spoken five languages, had written beautiful poetry, spent 35 years teaching young people to serve the Lord—and I cursed God for turning that man into an empty shell, my words echoing across the cold concrete parking garage and off into the cold night.
On March 1, 2004, the doctors said my dad had 24 hours to live.
The next day, Sandy’s labor began.
Our baby was born 30 hours later. Dad was still with us. I ran up the stairs to tell my family the good news.
My dad was wearing an oxygen mask and was breathing in slow, ragged gasps. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes were glazed over. I couldn’t tell if he heard me.
Later that night, our nurse wheeled Sandy and my son into the elevator.
When the doors opened, we saw an honor guard of a dozen nurses waiting for us, flanking the hallway on the way to dad’s room. They were all crying.
My whole family was gathered by Dad’s bedside.
I picked up our baby and brought him to my father.
‘Dad, there is someone here who wants to meet you. This is my son, William Cameron Rang, your grandson.’
I could barely get the words out.
My dad opened his eyes. My son opened his eyes. They looked at each other for a while–studying each other soundlessly, it seemed to me.
My dad tried to speak but couldn’t. His eyes welled up with tears, and his mouth pulled down as he cried.
Then he lifted his hand to touch his grandson. His hand was dry and thin, like paper.
I told my dad over and over that I loved him and that I would raise my son as he had raised me. That I would strive to be the kind of father that he had been.
Much later, we took William Cameron away, and I went home to sleep.
At just after 4 a.m. on March 4, my brother-in-law called with the news that Dad had died. Four days after being given 24 hours to live.
In late stages of Alzheimer’s, the brain slowly dies away. Eventually the victim cannot eat. Then drink. Then breathe. In my dad’s case, this was hastened by hundreds of small strokes. In the indelicate words of the neurologist, he had ‘very little brain left’ in the last weeks of life.
So there was no medical reason why my dad should have been able to make new memories—to hang on to his life until his grandson was born. To know him when he met him. To speak to me so clearly. To raise his hand. To cry tears from parched eyes.
There is no earthly reason he should have been able to give me this one last, great bedside story.
A story about a man, seemingly robbed of all his gifts—who became a blinding beacon of the awesome power of a loving God.
The nurse put my newborn son in my arms.
I looked down at him.
I felt him small and warm and alive. A tiny, precious thing.
‘The child is father to the man.’
How can he be? The words are wild.
Suck any sense from that who can:
‘The child is father to the man.’
No; what the poet did write ran,
‘The man is father to the child.’
‘The child is father to the man!’
How can he be? The words are wild.
This is a video of four-year-old Isiaah, playing the djembe. You will smile; you will not be able to stop. I was proud when Ian started matching pitch. He needs to work on his rhythm.
I’ve recently become involved in local government, and spent much of last night in a budget meeting. I was able to spend two hours with Kelly and Ian before the meeting; not nearly enough time for any of us.
Ian’s been going through a Mommy & Me phase, so it took a bit of cajoling to get him to snuggle with me. Kelly pulled a guilt-trip, and told Ian that I’d had a bad day, was leaving soon, and was sad. I pouted—partly—for effect.
He and I spent a few blessed minutes snuggling on the couch and watching TV, Ian curled on my chest. Finally I sighed, rubbed his head, and told him that I had to leave for my meeting. He lifted his head, ‘You’re leaving?’ I nodded. ‘Now?’ I nodded. ‘No!’ He put his head back down, and resumed snuggling.
We both kept insisting, and Ian was briefly on the verge of tears. I sat up to make my way to the front door. ‘I”m sorry, kiddo, I really have to go.’
‘You’re leaving?’ I nodded. ‘Now?’ I nodded. ‘Go!’ And he pushed me. ‘Go!’ I returned nearly four hours later, long after Ian was in bed and asleep.
Early this morning, around four o’clock, Ian woke, crying. I threw off the blanket and padded to his room. He was sniffling as I opened the door, his hair plastered to his head with sweat; summer has arrived in St. Louis. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ He sat up.
