As we count down (8 days!), I find myself with a little quiet time to reflect. Those who know me best know I [...]]]> This morning I rolled out of bed to find a dusting of snow on the ground and a sky full of flurries.  Finally, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …

As we count down (8 days!), I find myself with a little quiet time to reflect. Those who know me best know I recently pulled the emergency cord on the electric merry-go-round of my life and asked the conductor to kindly let me off. There comes a time in our lives when we must take stock of who we have become and who we want to become (you know, the whole unexamined life bit).  And if we don’t like where we’re going, we have to stop and make change. Sometimes that takes sacrifices … sometimes not so much as we thought.

Now if I sat down to list the things I thought I would lose  … suddenly, I can’t remember what I might have written.  At the moment, all I can see is what I have gained … and the future – a great big world of opportunity – one I haven’t honestly glimpsed since I was a child full of “I wants.”

For Adam

I remember writing my first letter to “Santa.” I think I asked for a new Barbie van and that he wave hello to “my daddy” on his “big ship” in Vietnam. I’m sure the letter included other things I coveted, but only the Barbie van stands out, along with my absent father. Although I’ve long since stopped believing in Santa, and my grown-up Christmas “wish” list is vastly different from that of my youth, I decided to write a new one — warning! There will be a lot of “I’s” in this post, because, well, it’s all about me and my self-involved plethora of wants that, if I manage to get them all, will make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

So here goes …

Topping my list, I want my babies (yes, they will remain my babies til they are 90!) to be healthy and happy and to never know the true meaning of words like Cancer and AIDS. I want them to have a billion acquaintances, but lucky enough to know a few true friends — friends who’ll stand at my graveside alongside them (hopefully, many, many moons from now!) and comfort them when I’m gone. I want their partners to love them as I do … unconditionally. And I want them to try to remember to give themselves permission not take life so seriously. The older I get, as loved ones come and go, the more I realize how important it is to value each and every precious moment, whether that moment saw the cure for cancer, or the discovery of absolutely nothing.

Peace on Earth!

I want my grandson to come into this world healthy, with a lung-filled wail that says “Here I am, World!” And then I want those to be the last tears he ever sheds, unless they are tears of joy.

I want the kitty under my house to come out, so I can find him a warm and loving home.

I want a hug from my mommy. (And one from my daddy, but that’s one I’ll have to wait for.)

I want people to get along like the cat and dogs in my house, treating each other like kin, without regard to the differences between them.

I want Monsanto to get a sudden and incurable case of good will toward men.

I want to tell (and write!) stories that will leave people with a smile at the end of a long, hard day.

I want the homeless to be warm.

I want to learn to stop time – forget about the past, forget about worrying about the future – live in the moment.

I want to stop being in such a hurry that I forget to appreciate the people in my life I love the most.  They are what truly matter to me.

I want every single child born to have enough food and love for each day of his life.

I want “lonely” to be a forgotten word.

I want to be a positive part of positive change.

I want, I want, I want …

I sincerely hope you all get everything you hope for this Christmas and more! In Dickens’ words, “God Bless us everyone.”

Have a very, very happy holiday!

Memorial Day was my dad’s favorite holiday. But he never said so — at least not with words. It was the one time of the year you could count on lighting the grill, rain or shine. But I’m not sure he considered it “his” holiday, despite the fact that he’d served in Vietnam. [...]]]>

Memorial Day was my dad’s favorite holiday. But he never said so — at least not with words. It was the one time of the year you could count on lighting the grill, rain or shine. But I’m not sure he considered it “his” holiday, despite the fact that he’d served in Vietnam. In fact, I don’t know what my dad felt about his time in Vietnam. He never spoke of it, and I suspect like so many soldiers, he was torn. What he was never silent about was his admiration for those men and women who serve our country on a daily basis. No matter what you may feel about war, you can’t not appreciate the sacrifices that have been made. While the powers that be may in fact be playing a game of chess with the world at large, these simple men and women — my father, my husband’s father, my uncle, your father — all fought for love. They fought for us. They knew nothing about pawns and games of chess, they only knew they were fighting for their families and for the man standing next to them.

My dad has been gone now for 8 years and I still miss him every day. I wrote this for him after his death and in his memory, I’m sharing it with you:

In Loving Tribute to My Father (David Oliver Rietz)
Through modern technology, the time of death can be pinpointed to the precise instant. But you don’t need wires and monitors to tell you when someone you love takes a final breath; there is no more accurate monitor than the heart.

I arrived for the long wait just in time. My father was drifting into blackness — welcoming it, even — after a brave, painful struggle with cancer. He could still hear me, I know, though barely. Pain and drugs now fogged his brain, which had been so keen and lucid only hours before. His eyes, too, were hazing, and I could hear the seconds ticking away like an iron clock in my head. Time, as daddy had lamented to me only three weeks before, was running as thin as the paper skin covering his illness-ravaged hand.

That hand … my toddler hand had sought it … squirmed out of its steely grip as a 5-year-old … dared not touch it as a too-modest teen. And now … at 41, I was again that 5-year-old standing before my daddy — but instead of squirming free, I was afraid to let go, lest I never have the opportunity to hold that hand again. He was my daddy and I was his princess … and I had come to say goodbye … alongside my brothers, my sister and my mother. We shared a communion in that twilight-shaded room where silence was king and tears quivered down cheeks as quietly and timidly as fearful subjects before the tyrant Death’s booming voice. But my father had not raised a coward; as afraid as I was to breach the silence I knew this would be my last chance to speak what my heart was shouting. “I love you, daddy,” I said with a quiver in my voice. But I suspected he knew it. He blinked. “I’m proud of you, daddy,” I continued.

It was what I would have wanted to hear, and, after all, everyone said I was just like him.

We had a connection, daddy and me — a connection that I hadn’t always relished. Like an obsessed sculptor with his subject clay, he’d attempted to mold me in his image while the pieces stubbornly fell away. At first, he’d persisted in tacking back an arm here, a leg there, but the constant rebellion wearied him and he finally threw up his hands, all the while shaking his head over his perfect vision gone awry. So I worked and reworked the rebel clay, sometimes ecstatic with the results, sometimes horrified, until I settled on a fitting image — one that seemed entirely my own. But as time eroded my handiwork, melding my vision with that of the sculptor’s, I discovered that while the masterpiece bore its own unique features, the image hadn’t metamorphosed into something so very different from its beginnings.

Three weeks before, with tears in his eyes, a gaunt-faced withered man, my father had apologized for being so tough on me. I shushed him. I was what I was because of him — good and bad. I told him so. And I was damned proud.

More than anything, I was proud of the white-haired soldier lqying now so still before me, whose hair grew in silky defiance to the chemo — thick and beautiful. He was brave, my daddy, and honorable and proud. He fought with true grit, never raising that white flag. He fought until the smoke cleared and the multitude of enemy cells at long last held him at rifle-point, bayonets aimed at his head … and lungs … and kidneys and liver.

It’s clear to me now that my father heard his own “Taps” playing long before the rest of us were ready to accept his fate — our fate. And still, as the merciless cancer attacked like 10,000 bloodthirsty bayonets, he raised his head against the onslaught … until my mother was strong enough – and brave enough – to give the final nod. Even in utter defeat he was proud. He didn’t spit in the face of the enemy — death — but stood, bloodied and battered, gave his name, rank and serial number, and with incredible dignity, extended his hand into a farewell salute that moistened every pair of eyes. He apologized to his doctor for not making it out alive.

So I stayed by my father’s side as his mind faded to black and his body gave up his ghost. My heart wrenched as the monitors heralded his final moments with shrieks that frenzied my soul. And the turmoil of his final breaths left me utterly confused … selfless and selfish at once … wanting him to go, wanting him to stay … begging him to die, willing him to live.

In the end, I had no say at all.

I knew the instant he let go of my hand to reach for the hand of God and I gave him my blessing by whispering his favorite verse, The 23rd Psalm. It had been his mother’s favorite; now it was mine.

I’ve come to realize that mourning is never easy and never done. Every day I miss my father more. Last night I fell asleep with a pang in my heart and fat tears in my eyes.

I dreamt. The first dream was both wonderful and terrible at once: For an immeasurable, beautiful time — it could have been a fraction of a second or an eternity — but for the span of a single dream I was with my dad again and I was joyful in his presence. Although he was suffering still, he was with us. He hadn’t made that dreadful decision to refuse treatment for dignity’s sake. He was safe at home. We didn’t complain as we cared for him and daddy didn’t complain that we had to. We were even grateful for the opportunity to help him use the toilet, because we thrived in those instants when his smile and good humor were like the sun to our withering hopes. And then he fell — in my dream — in the bathroom — and cracked his head. Like the young man who had once so long ago skated a champion performance only to fall, pick himself up, brush himself off and skate into the spotlight without a single complaint for the swollen ankle or scrape on his knee, he allowed us to lift up his desecrated body and even offered a lighthearted quip for our troubles. At least he was still with us, I said in a silent prayer of gratitude. And we walked him, step by painful step, to his bed only to watch him stumble and fall headfirst against the dresser, smashing the mirror with his face. I watched in horror as the blood seeped into the cracked glass like a scarlet web. He didn’t stir and the only reflection peering back at me in the crumpled mirror was my own … accusing. I was suddenly no longer so joyful, because my father was in pain and I fully realized the selfishness in my desire to keep him.

Shaken by the vision, my eyes flew open. The pain I’d fallen asleep with only hours before was amplified as I closed my eyes again … still to dream.

This time I envisioned another place with faces I didn’t recognize. My father appeared before me amidst strangers and stood smiling, wearing his favorite gray and blue plaid flannel shirt. And he said the most inane thing — something I was hardly in danger of forgetting. He said with a mischievous grin, “Hey Tanya … I’m pissing.”

I blinked and thought … God, I must be dreaming. Only in a dream would my father say something so bizarre. And it wasn’t as though he was actually doing it; he merely stood there grinning. I shook it off as unintelligible dream fodder and dreamt again and still again and again … of places where my father would never be … and each time, he appeared in his blue and gray flannel shirt and said, “Hey Tanya … I’m pissing.”

Christ only knew what that was supposed to mean, because I certainly didn’t. My father had been a sailor, but his salty tongue had always been reserved for “the boys.”

Then I dreamt of him one last time: I held the keys to some strange car in my hands — a black sports car of indistinct design. And just as I was about to unlock the door, my father called to me. He was standing at my back in the middle of a verdant lawn. The sun was shining brightly, reflecting off the silver in his hair. And he said, again, to my continued bewilderment, “Hey Tanya … I’m pissing.”

I just stared at him, embarrassed by his vulgarity despite my suspicion that it was merely a dream.

He asked, beaming still, “Do you know why?”

I shook my head.

He said, “Because I can.”

The dream was just about done, I realized, but I needed a hug from my daddy. Without a word, he put out his arms to welcome me into his embrace and I hurried into them, savoring the warmth and safety he radiated, dreading the instant I would awake.

The moment came and I opened my eyes. I turned off the alarm and got into the shower, shaking my head over the nonsensical dreams. But as the water rained down upon me, I realized suddenly what my daddy had been trying to say …

In his final days — months actually — he had been urinating blood. In fact, his urine hadn’t been clear for over a year before his death. It was his only real complaint, though he had so much to complain about. And in my moment of epiphany, as the shower washed away my tears, I flashed on the bright red blood in his hospital bathroom, where my mother had emptied his tubes. I flashed on the last days of his life when the nurse had checked his catheter for a sign that his kidneys had begun to work … and I continued to check the catheters in vain when the nurse, resigned, no longer bothered. In the end, not one drop left the prison of his body.

“Because I can,” he’d said to me.

In my heart, I believe it was my father’s way of telling me he was whole again, that he was well. Where he lives there is no more suffering, no more pain. Somewhere, he’s standing in his beloved back yard … alongside the puppies we buried as a family … with the water trickling down from the fountain into the pond he built with his hands. And he’s wearing his favorite flannel shirt … and smiling at me.

The details have to stay under wraps, but I’m looking for someone who knows the ins and outs of the Charleston police department. It’s not a tell-all! So no worries there. If you contribute, you’ll get a [...]]]> I’m really excited to be working on a new series of books that takes place in Charleston, SC.

The details have to stay under wraps, but I’m looking for someone who knows the ins and outs of the Charleston police department. It’s not a tell-all! So no worries there. If you contribute, you’ll get a nifty little thank you in the book once it publishes.

If you’re this person, or know someone who would like to contribute, send an email to tanya@tanyaanencrosby.com