There Is No Rewind Button

    

 

    I posted before about hearing the news that one of my co-workers had reposed on February 1, 2021.  He went to sleep on the night of January 31st and did not wake up.  His memorial service is tomorrow and I learned today of a page that his family set up to keep all their memories.  One of the things included on that page was a video that his wife made talking about their life together.  She spoke of how they were made for each other and he was her left to her right.  The video can be found here:

    "Life doesn't give you do-overs; it doesn't let you hit rewind; it doesn't warn you when you are approaching a cliff; our world although tightly intermingled and wrapped in love, had lost its way.  The job had taken its toll on Jimmie and he spent many of his evenings physically present, but emotionally checked out."  "That facade of separation prevented us from making changes in our own lives.  It wasn't enough to shift our priorities."..."He left the work he loved to heal the wounds he didn't know he had until it was too late.  When you shine light into a dark world, it can consume you."  "We thought we had more time".

    He was one of the best agents I knew who worked child exploitation matters.  The consensus in our forensic lab was he was the last person on earth you would want tracking you down.  For as long as I knew him, he worked child exploitation cases.  When he stepped away from that violation last year, none of us knew why he stepped away.  In listening to his wife's from the heart video, it seems that he did so for his family and his own well being.

    In my little world, of the last 5 people that I knew from work or from a family tie who died, 4 died suddenly and without warning.   Jennie's dad died suddenly in his living room; an intelligence analyst died in the stairwell at work on his way upstairs for work; an agent died while out for a morning jog; an agent went to sleep on January 31 and never woke up.  Only one, my first wife Theresa, knew it was coming and had time to prepare.  As Christians we all know that we are not guaranteed one more breath in our life.  In my little bubble, 80% of the people did not know that they would be called home suddenly and without warning.

    "We all have things we put off until later. Until there is a better time.  Until we finish that one last project, that one last case, answer that one last phone call, respond to that one last email.  Life brings us many purposes, but the biggest purpose of all is connection and love.  It is more important than all the noise in our chaotic life."  "It is too easy to get lost in the daily grind of life.  To be together, and yet be so far apart.  To be lost in a parallel existence of iPads, cell phones and work."

    One of the things that came out of the death of Theresa at such a young age was that I lost any preconceived notions that I had that life will go according to my plan.  That there will always be another day to be "in the moment".  That there will be another chance to tell someone how I feel about them.  Theresa died on a Monday morning.  The next day I had an appointment to visit the mortuary to finalize the business of dying.  I woke up around 4:30am and decided to go for a walk on the back trails.  As the sun started to rise and more people came outside, people were going on with their lives.  They were walking in groups, talking, laughing, smiling.  I wanted to scream at them that my world had just blown up and they were laughing.  It was such a strange feeling and experience.  The reality that quickly came over me was life goes on, with or without you.

    JJD also died on a Monday.  Two days later, his supervisor and a co-worker were going through all of his things looking for "accountable property" that belonged to the FBI but was assigned to him.  I had the same strange feeling that I had on April 19, 2016.  I wanted to scream at them, "the body is not even cold yet and you are scavenging for stuff".  Yet, the same reality came to me that day too.  Life goes on, with or without you.  Our society has allowed work and noise to permeate all parts of our day.  With many people now working from home, the line has been further blurred.  However, at the end of the day, each of us will die and all that will remain for our family are memories.  I might be the most successful forensic examiner in all the FBI, but when I retire, or repose, someone else will pick up the ball and move it down the field.  Do not fool yourself.  Despite what some may say at memorial services, we are all replaceable.  At work that is.

    I am coming up on the 5 year anniversary of Theresa falling asleep in the Lord.  At her funeral Divine Liturgy our parish priest talked about how competent she was in all the tasks that she undertook, in her work life and in her volunteer work at the parish.  He was absolutely spot on in that assessment.  Yet, I don't remember her for how good she was with spreadsheets, balance sheets and other financial tasks.  I remember the vacations we took; the quiet times we had before Ryan was born; the absolute joy in her voice when she woke me up to tell me that she was pregnant; the fun times of watching Ryan grow up all too fast; the sad times that we endured as a couple (the death of my dad, the loss of a baby to miscarriage, the death of her mother whom she was estranged from, the heartbreaking news that all the treatment she undertook was for naught). 

    I am far from being a perfect husband.  However, I often tell Jennie that she got a better husband at the start of our marriage than Theresa had.  I am a better husband because I know what matters in life and it is not spending all my time on work related things.  I sent the video above to Jennie and told her that it was a tough one to watch. That JJD knew what needed to be done, that he needed to focus more time on his family and that time was cut short.  Jennie asked me a simple question in our exchange:  "What is something you would be sad we didn't do or finish if I were to die suddenly?"  I responded with "that we would not have a long marriage".  Jennie countered with, "But anything you've wanted to do with me that we just haven't made time for..I know travel is limited obviously."  My response was a simple but profound, "not really".  I said, "Mrs. Cullen getting sentimental.  Jennie responded with this gem:

    All of the sadness and trauma that came from having a spouse die at 44 years old, or a father who died suddenly at 67,  has changed  both Jennie and I in one profound way.  We know what matters in life and it is the connection with your close family and the memories that you make.   Everything else is really just window dressing. JJD's wife ended her video with the following words:

    "We all have a gift.  We all have love and connections in our lives.  How often do we nurture those connections?  How often do we carve away time to just be present, to just be in the moment with those we love? How often do we let go of the burdens the weigh us down in order to dance to the beat that life has always been playing for us?  My hope for you is that you strain your ears and find that beat, because in all reality that is truly why we are all here."

    One of the best messages I received came from Fr. John Petro, a co-director of the Deacon Formation Program, on the evening of 4/18/2016.  "There are some journeys in life, Patrick, that we must walk alone.  And this is one of them for you.  Others may offer their support, their prayers and their help in many wonderful way, but, at the end of the day, it is a journey that only you can walk.  No one can enter that sacred place the defined your relationship with Theresa.  And, no one can ever take it away from you either.  Please treasure that sacred place as Theresa's lasting gift to you." 

    Focus your time and energies on things that matter, the people in your life.  Don't waste an opportunity to tell them how you feel, don't go to bed angry, don't leave the house angry.  The last thing you say to someone will one day truly be the last thing you say.  In your charity, say a prayer for the soul of JJD and for peace for his family that can only come from above.  We pray in our tradition, "Great peace to your world, to your churches, to the priests, to our government, and to all your people. For all generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from you, the Father of Lights; and we give glory, thanksgiving, and worship to you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever."

    

    

What the F*&K Are You Even Talking About

    What the F*&K are you even talking about?  This is something that has come to my mind recently, along with several other key times in my life over the past 5 years.  Sometimes we don’t what to say.  Two things usually happen in this situation.  First, we don’t say anything.  Second, our mouth opens up and says what it wants to say.  Some of the events that caused this reaction were:

    February 2, 2016 when a reconstructive surgeon told Theresa and I that he believed all of the issues she was seeing on her skin was inflammatory breast cancer.  What the F*&K  are you talking about Doc?  We have been undergoing the gold standard breast cancer treatment over the past 6 months.  What?

    February 19, 2016 when a phone call from Theresa told me that the PET scan revealed multiple hepatic and osseous lesions indicative of metastatic disease.  What the F*&K are you talking about?  How did we go from good margins with no lymph node involvement to metastatic breast cancer with spreading to the chest, femur and brain? What?

    October 22, 2019 when my cell phone rang while running on a treadmill with my wife telling me that I needed to come home, her dad is dead.  What the F*&K are you talking about?  You saw him 3 days prior, he was perfectly healthy and was did not have any known underlying disease. What?

    February 1, 2021 when a co-worker and I returned from an errand out of the office and another agent told us that Jimmie was found dead that morning.  What the F*&K are you taking about?  I just talked to him on Friday.  He was the same, obnoxious, funny, person that we all knew.  What?

    February 2, 2021 when that same co-worker asked me if I had heard the news out of Florida.  Two FBI Special Agents were shot and killed during the execution of a federal search warrant for Violent Crimes Against Children.  What the F*&K are you talking about?  I’ve been on many of these types of warrants and made it out alive.  What?

    April 18, 2021 when word started to circulate in the office that one of our fellow agents died in his sleep, 12 hours after taking the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19.  What the F*&K are you talking about?  Many of us have taken that shot and he was only 45 years old, leaving behind a wife and 3 boys.

    I have written many times about the problem of why bad things happen to good people.  Why is it that some really bad people seem to hit the gene lottery and live well into their 80’s or 90’s, all the while being “shit-heads”, while other people seem to be losers in the gene lottery, dying of some unknown reason at 42, metastatic breast cancer at 44 or heart disease at 67.  It truly rattles your nerves when you see good, moral people, dying at a young age.  How do you even begin to process things when death comes calling for your person?

    The events of this week stirred up some things in me that had been lying dormant for a while.  3 FBI agents dead leaving 3 spouse and 6 children to pick up the pieces and move forward.  Why move forward?  Because that is the only thing that humans get to do.  We do not get to go backwards and we can not stay where we are, especially when there are 6 children that need to move forward and will look to the serving spouse for guidance.  In the case of the agents killed, I had an intense desire, a near rage, to want to serve justice and vengeance on their killer.  

    3 young spouses who are going to have to navigate the world of being a young widow.  It truly is not for the faint of heart.  In a world where divorced people are kind of like "a dime a dozen”, they just entered into a pretty exclusive and crappy club.  If and when they choose to embrace someone new, they will all face that scrutiny that they aren’t doing it right; they are moving on too fast; they must not have loved their former spouse that much since they are already moving on.  They will find themselves in this strange world where the person they choose to move forward with, or just date, doesn’t have any frame of reference to their world and sometimes can not deal with it all.

They will find people who are not secure enough to be the one that comes after.  They will meet people who can’t understand how a person can still love their first spouse and yet give themselves totally to their new spouse.  This comes from the divorce culture we live in.  You see, our marriages ended because God said so and took our spouses.  Their marriages ended because one or both just stopped loving each other.  Even when we find the right person, there are many issues that will come up, primarily driven by the way the divorced spouse was wronged in their marriage.  

We widows come from good experiences in our marriage.  When it is all said and done, the divorced spouse has a harder time in a second marriage than the widowed spouse.  I had a great marriage and would be working on 26 years if God had not taken my first wife. Yet, one of my insecurities comes when Jennie goes on a road trip alone. I have this irrational fear that I will get a call that she is gone.  It is left over baggage from my past trauma and it is just something that I’ve had to learn to live with.

    On the other hand, Jennie had a terrible marriage with a jackass spouse who brought so much insecurity to her life. She also has irrational fears, albeit different ones than me.  That I will eventually stop loving her and choose to check out of the marriage.  Just like my irrational fear, this is leftover from her first marriage and is something she has had to learn to live with.  Add to this that she still has to see her first spouse, deal with him in the joint raising of children and see the same manipulative, narcissistic tendencies come out while dealing with the children.  

    This is why the news this week hit me so hard.  3 spouses having to go through the pain of burying a young spouse; having to walk a treacherous path with their children and try to bring some semblance of normalcy to their broken world; having to deal with the fact that regardless of just how much people say they are going to help you and be there for you, it all goes away in a fairly short amount of time.  3 spouses, if they choose the path of remarriage, who will have to deal with all the sideways glances, murmurs, questions about just how much they loved their first spouse, comments that you are moving on too soon, comments that you need to move on with your life.  They will have to learn how to navigate the world of broken marriages and broken spouses who have a hard time understanding how they can still love their first spouse.  They will have to learn to “bite their tongue” when the biological parent makes their new spouse miserable and the kids suffer for it.  

    Having walked this crazy, and pardon my French, shitty path, there is an aching in my soul for what they are enduring right now and will continue to endure for months and years to come. As I have said before, I will say it again.  If you have not walked in the shoes of these young widows you would be best served just to keep your mouth shut.  Rather to be thought a fool and jackass than to open your mouth and confirm those suspicions. 

    What I would tell each of those spouses about the road they are going to travel is that it will get better.  Follow your instincts when it comes to helping your kids navigate this road.  Take time to listen to them, but also take time to listen to yourself.  You will know if and when the time is right to consider opening up to someone new.  Do not let others influence you or make you feel bad about any decisions you make.  I can promise you when the right person comes along, you will know it and you will feel like you have been given a new lease on life.

Time Marches On

  Five years ago I sat in the front row of my parish church, in front of the icon of the Theotokos, and came to the realization that Theresa's cancer journey was not going to end well.  I've written about this before, but to serve as a refresher, I used to pray the Orthodox prayer for the sick daily for Theresa.  In that prayer we pray: "Who are able to put aside every sickness and infirmity, do You Yourself, the same Lord, grant aid to Your servant and cure  them of every sickness of which he/she is grieved; and send down up them Your great mercy, and if to be Your will, give to them health and a complete recovery...."  From June to October I would always leave off the If It Be Your Will part. But on that October day I prayed the complete prayer and had a calm pass over me even though accepting His will was not going to coincide with what my will would have been.

     From that day until the present day, I have worked hard to try and help Ryan move forward.  From October to April the focus was preparing him for that moment when his mom was taken away from him.  From April to now it has been preparing him for life without his Mom and getting him to realize his full potential, despite all of the sad things that took place.

     The journey forward has not been an easy one.  There have been moments over the past five years when I was mad about being the one left behind, the one left to pick up the pieces and go forward.  I have thought back to how much stronger my faith was in 2015 and how being called home to The Holy Trinity would have been an easier thing than moving forward.  I remember sitting alone some nights thinking how in the hell can I help my boy move forward when everything in his life was turned upside down and nothing seems to be going right for us. I had to remind myself many times that time marches on. 

     He entered into middle school a few months after Theresa died and that was one of the hardest times in our life.  Middle school is hard enough without dealing with all the life events that had taken place. It was a common occurrence for me to get phone calls from the school because things were not going well.  My co-workers in Tucson could tell you stories of my cell phone flying across the room a few times because of these calls.  Academically he was failing just about every subject he was taking.  Despite all of that, he called me one day and told me that he was going to run for an elected office on the student council.  He crafted a speech and gave it the next day.  Nothing came of that event other than frustration and sadness at the treatment he received by some of the 6th grade kids.

     Half way through 6th grade, we moved to Phoenix and found a private school for him to attend.  The rest of 6th grade was still hard.  7th grade got a little easier and 8th grade a lot easier. As he settled into his school, he started to realize his potential and ended the 8th grade on a high.  Despite the lunacy of the Covid-19 lockdown, he was maintaining a 4.0 GPA and becoming more engaged with his fellow students. 

     In the days and weeks after Theresa died, Ryan did not want anything to do with the present or future.  He did not want to ride in her car since it reminded him of her.  He did not want to stay in our house in Sahuarita since it reminded him of her.  He did not want to attend church since it reminded him of her.  He did not want to think about the future because it was a painful thought of walking forward with his Mom.  I remember telling him many times that as humans we can not go backwards and we can not stay in the present.  Time marches on and the only way for humans is to move forward.  I've had to tell myself that too.

     Last night Ryan told me that he was running for the class representative spot on the student council.  He told me that the elections were held earlier that day and that he would know the results of them in the village meeting his school holds every morning.  He told me he would email me once he knew the outcome of the election.  I texted him before school started "Good luck this morning.  Regardless of the outcome I'm proud that you ran".  This morning at 9:15 I received the following email: "I'm student rep for 9th grade".  Despite all the issues, setbacks, bullying and general garbage of life happening to him, Ryan was determined to move forward and to do it well.

     You look back on the lives of some of the Saints of the Church and you see all the hardships, struggles and sadness that they had to deal with.  Pope John Paul II lost his mother when he was 8 years old. 4 years later at the age of 12 he lost his brother to scarlet fever.  At the age of 21, his father died leaving him alone in the world at 21.  Despite all this sadness in his life, Karol Wojtyla found his way in the world, rising through the clerical ranks to assume the Chair of St. Peter in 1978 and remaining there until 2005, the second longest Papacy in church history.   I'm happy to see my boy finding his way in the world despite all the potholes in the road.   I wrote some time ago that life ain't always beautiful, but it's a beautiful ride.  

Saint John Paul II, pray for us.

Saint Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

     

The First Time Back Is Always The Toughest

      A few weeks ago Ryan suggested that he and I do a roadtrip down to Tucson.  We could eat at some of our old favorite restaurants, do some of the fun tourist things we used to do, visit with some old friends and take a stroll down memory lane.  We drove to Tucson on September 4th and stayed in an AirBnb in the Catalina Foothills.  On Friday we drove by the house we moved into in April 2017 and sold in November 2017.  This was the house we moved to from the one we had where Ryan, Theresa and I lived.

     We did some fun things on Saturday morning, got lunch at Frankies Cheesteaks and drove down to our first house in Arizona located in Sahuarita.  I noticed that Ryan wasn't saying much on the drive down but he was looking out the window as the scenery of I-19 went by.  We pulled into our old neighborhood and I asked him if he remembered the way to our house.  He shook his head no.  We made our way through the maze of side streets until we turned down the road that went by the old place.  I looked over at Ryan and could see that this visit made him sad.

     Since we moved from Sahuarita in 2017, I had driven by that old house at least 5 times on various trips to Tucson.  It never occurred to me until Saturday that this was the first time Ryan had been back to that place since we moved from it after his Mom had died there.  We finished the trip to Sahuarita driving past his elementary school and headed back to our AirBnB.

     We headed to our old parish church, St. Melany, for the Saturday Divine Liturgy.  During the homily, Fr. Rankin spoke on fear and grief.  He said, "there are many people here today who can identify that one of the hardest things to do is to go back to church following the funeral of a loved one because that is the place where the funeral took place."  It was a timely homily to hear given the sadness that my boy had earlier in the day when he returned to his first home for the first time since he left it after the death of his Mom.

     I remember well the timeline of events that took place after Theresa died on a Monday.  We made arrangements on Tuesday, had her Parastas on Wednesday, her funeral on Thursday and returned to church on Sunday.  I remember all the things that Ryan said he could no longer do:  I can't ride in Mom's old car again; I can't sleep/stay in this house anymore; I can't sit through Divine Liturgy because church is the last place I saw Mom.

Homily from Sep 5

     This is the strength of the human spirit.  From a little boy saying all the things he could not do, he continued to sleep at the Sahuarita house for more than a year after his Mom died there.  He did ride in her old car, albeit for only a short period of time, until we traded it in.  And he did sit through many Divine Liturgies at St. Melany because that is what we do as Catholics, we attend our Divine services.  Nearly 5 years later, he sat in another Divine Liturgy in the church where his Mom was resting for her funeral Divine Liturgy and heard his priest speak about returning to church to experience the liturgy, seeing that the church is the portal to heaven and having faith to look beyond the physical experience of seeing a casket and body to see the hope of the Resurrection.  To not have that ability to see beyond the physical is a sin against faith.

     I am proud of my boy for just how far he has come since those conversations about not wanting to stay in his house.  His growth as a person and ability to overcome the giant obstacle that was put in his path is a testament to the power of faith.

All Will Be Revealed, You Will Have No Questions

     One of the things that has stayed with me from Theresa's Divine Liturgy was the homily given by Fr. Robert Rankin.  At one point he held up a tapestry of the last supper and said that when you look at a tapestry from behind, the image is not very clear.  Yet when you look at it the correct way, the image becomes crystal clear.  Another line from that homily was that when you go beyond the veil into eternity, you will not have any questions.

     The photo above was taken in Paris at the Basilica of Sacre Coeur in 2018.  It came from one of the many mosaics that surround the altar dome.  We were looking through pictures of the various churches we had visited in Paris and when I looked at this photo, something became very apparent to me.

     If you enlarge the photo, you will see that the first two saints are St. Theresa and St. Rose.  That was the name given at birth to Theresa.  What suddenly occurred to me was that she chose the name Genevieve for her confirmation when she turned Catholic at 18.  The part that gave me chills was that my Jennifer's name saint is St. Genevieve.

     In so many ways and so many situations, I catch a glimpse of how interwoven our lives are.   The irony of this is how long it took me to make the connection.  We received a beautiful icon for our wedding of St. Patrick and St. Genevieve.  We found a statue of St. Genevieve in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  We visited the church and venerated the relics of St. Genevieve in Paris.  But it 

wasn't until last night, looking at a picture that it came to me.

     While I am still on this side of the veil, I don't see all the ways our lives are connected and directed by the giver of life. I sure hope that Fr. Rankin is correct and at the moment I pierce the veil and see the other side, there will be no questions and all things will be revealed to me.  Until that moment, I will cherish the little moments when I catch a glimpse of just how blessed and directed our  (Jennie and Patrick) lives are.

Out of Nowhere

     Tonight I had some time to myself and decided to take the little red convertible out for a drive in the cool evening night.  I had the top down, heater turned all the way up (it was 62 degrees) and the seat warmer on.  I was driving down a two lane road when the song "Eye in the Sky" by Jonatha Brooke came on.

     The last time I heard all of this song was 5 years ago driving in a different convertible, on a two lane road in Sahuarita, AZ with Theresa sitting in the passenger seat.  She wasn't feeling good but wanted to go out in the cool night air for a drive and wanted to hear this song.  It was one of her favorites, especially the version above.  I remember that night like it was yesterday.  This totally caught me off-guard.

     I remember what she was wearing, a green scarf she bought in Ireland, a brown leather bomber jacket, jeans and a big heavy blanket wrapped around herself. When the song ended she turned to me and said, Thank You for playing that song for me and thank you for taking me out to enjoy this night..   It was such a powerful memory.  Little did I know on that cool night in Southern Arizona that just 144 short days later she would be gone from our lives forever.  I remember being told that this process would be like waves in the ocean crashing into you.  It amazes me that something as simple as a song can trigger such an intense memory from many years ago.

May her memory be eternal.

This Should Be Required Watching

I found this today and watched the entire Ted talk.   I say this should be required watching for anyone who has lost someone, is losing someone or will lose someone.  Mad props to her for this talk.