After 17 Years: an Empty Bedroom

We have lived at our house in New Hope, Minnesota since July of 1993. When we bought this house, my son Ian was 6, and my daughter Rachel was 2 and a half. At that time, my wife and I had the largest bedroom, then Ian had the second biggest room. Rachel's bedroom was almost more of a personal office sized room compared to the others.

The room was painted a bright yellow and had all manner of "Girly-Girl" things that would befit a little girl's bedroom. Over the years, Rachel would share the roughly 12 foot by 9 foot bedroom(with the help of a bunk bed) with her AFS sister's Tiphaine, Akane and Orn.  Right before my son Ian went to Japan for his AFS year abroad, we finally decided that Rachel had lived in the cramped space long enough.  We built a room in the basement for Ian and then Rachel took over(and repainted) Ian's room, which went almost overnight from being an adolescent boy's room to a feminine cathedral to all things equine. At that time, we were hosting Diego from Chile, who decided to paint the room popsicle orange.

The small bedroom was now re-invented from being a children's room to a teenager's pad. It went from being Diego's room to Benidikte's room. Our snowboard-loving Norwegian kept the room's bright orange color. This would change when Paula from Finland moved into the room in August of 2004. The words "Flamboyant" and "Finnish" don't really go well together. Paula asked if the flaming orange room could be painted a more sedate powder blue(not unlike on the Finnish flag).  The room stayed powder blue when Rodrigo from Portugal moved in 3 years ago. While he was with us, Ian and Andrea found out they were pregnant, and they were due to have their baby in the summer of 2008. Rodrigo was put in the unfavorable spot of having his room being transitioned to a baby's nursery even before he flew back to Lisbon. He was a pretty good sport about it.

The plan was for Ian, Andrea and Duncan to live with us until they finished their university studies. Luckily, Ian has a good eye for design, and he repainted the room with a whimsical day scene on a couple of the walls, and a starry sky on the other walls. On Duncan's shelves were a myriad of toy monsters and children's books.

Since June of 2008, this room has been Duncan's room...until today. My son, his wife and Duncan have moved into a place of their own over in Saint Paul. I admit that I have been very ambivalent about their moving. They need to be their own family unit after living with us the last 2 years. That said, it's a unique thing for a grandparent to watch their their grandchild grow up on a day to day basis. Duncan has gone from being a very calm baby to being an impossibly good-tempered two year old(He does have his moments, but they have been few and far between) Today, after Ian and I emptied out his room, I grabbed two of his favorite soft dolls, his Earnie and his Curious George along with some soft play tiles that had covered his floor. The finality of taking those last couple of toys out of Duncan's room just hit me harder than I had even anticipated....I totally lost it and started to cry in the kitchen-while still hanging on to Earnie and George. (That had to be quite a sight)

I cannot help but to think of images from that room from the past 17 years: of tow-headed Rachel playing with her Barnie and her American Girl Dolls, of me reading Rachel her bed-time stories, of Rachel chattering away with her AFS sisters later at night in the room-when they all knew they should be asleep, of Tiphaine, Orn and Akane NEVER complaining about the tight quarters of the room,  of Diego playing guitar in the room, of Bennie crying over a boy who had broken her heart, of Paula having the cats asleep on her chest and head, of Rodrigo's soccer and rugby clothes scattered in the room...of changing my grandson's diapers countless times, of dressing him, of watching him play on the floor of his room....of laying him down to say goodnight, and how much "Papi"(that's me) loves him-and how Duncan never gave me an ounce of trouble in putting him to bed.

 There are so many images that come to mind of the occupants of this now empty bedroom...as tears start to well in my eyes, I ask myself what will be the next incarnation of this room that has seen so much in the past 17 years?

It has been said that a house is just the board, brick and drywall-it's the people in the house that make it a home.  That is very apparent as I walk through the now empty bedroom.

The Father of the Groom Speaks...

With my son's wedding this past weekend, and all of the preparation and out of town guests who came into town for the wedding, I just have not had much of a chance to blog.

The wedding of one of your kids is one of those watershed moments in your life, like your own marriage and birth of your children and grandchildren. There was a lot going through my head, as I reflected on Ian's birth at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas in 1987 and moved on to the steps in his life from infancy to toddlerhood, pre-school, school, elementary and high school.  (I keep seeing the little blond boy with the bowl-cut) I coached him in soccer as a kid. He went through some tough times growing up. He had migraines, gained weight because of the medicines that he was on. You cannot tell to look at him now, but as 10-12 year old, he was heavy and had to put up with a lot of grief from other kids because of his weight. He lost the weight, and over time became a very confident young man. He gained a great deal of maturity when he studied in Niigata, Japan for a year in high school. He did well in college at Rutgers University, then transferred from their to North Hennepin Community College and then to the University of Minnesota, where he just graduated with a degree in Asian Studies and Languages. 

Two years ago, he and his girlfriend Andrea had my grandson, Duncan. It was not a planned pregnancy, but they stuck together through thick and thin. When you don't have money and a young child, the stress can be enough to break up a relationship. In spite of everything, Ian and Andrea stuck together, and they decided to get married this past Saturday. There were well over a couple of hundred people at the wedding and the reception. A great time was had by all. We killed off all of the Shiraz, and Vinha Verde(a whole case) and 4 16 gallon kegs of beer. People had a good time, but nobody got stupid.

I've had a couple of days to process all of this, and I just have to say how proud I am of the man my son has become. He's smart, thoughtful, courteous, treats his wife well and is a patient father to Duncan.

They have now found an apartment in Saint Paul, where they will move in September. I am going to miss having Ian, Andrea and Duncan around on a day-to-day basis...but it is time for them to move on and become their own family unit.

A long time ago, somebody said that in parenthood, the idea of the job is to work yourself out of a job.  I think my wife(who looked smashing on Saturday) and I have done a good job of that.

Aspen or Bust...

It's been a tough last 14-15 months for me: pulmonary embolism, wife laid off from work, return of my atrial-fibrillation, death of my grandmother, my cardiac ablation, my dad's cardiac bypass surgery, preparation for my son's impending wedding...yeah, it's been chaotic.

Well, things have been looking up, a bit. The ablation took care of my a-fib, I've lost my winter weight gain, I've been lifting weights and biking so I look and feel better(bottom shot of me, my daughter and our dogs Basil and Buddha)  than how chunky I was looking when I was in Portugal back in February as you can see from this shot from a Benfica soccer game...(Our former exchange student Rodrigo is on the left, his buddy Duarte is on the right)

A couple of weeks back a couple of Metropolis Old Boys put out an e-mail looking for players over the age of 35 interested in playing at the Aspen Ruggerfest. http://www.facebook.com/aspenruggerfest
I decided that I am going to be 50 in October, I may not get another chance to play at this tournament and everybody I know who has gone to Aspen Ruggerfest has had a really, REALLY, good time. I decided to throw caution to the wind and get my plane tickets to go to Colorado in September. http://www.aspenrugby.com/ruggerfest.html


I am going to talk with my cardiologist about coming up with a plan to get off the blood thinner that I have been on for the past 15 months. I am increasing my interval training and I will start going to practices with Metropolis when my work schedule allows.(I work straight evenings)

I am really committed to doing this. I may be nuts, but I think going to this tournament serves as a great carrot on the stick to improve my fitness and play some rugby again. It won't be easy...I'll feel like a new kid at rugby practice...but it will put a smile back on my face.

Ablations, Rugby and Bridesmaids...

I am feeling pretty good after my cardiac ablation this past Monday. When I last had the procedure over 5 and a half years ago, my chest felt like it had been worked over with a baseball bat for the better part of a week. At that time I did not have the strength or the wind to make it halfway up my street. This time, I have actually been able to walk the mile around the entire Cooper High School complex across the street from my house. My doctor told me that even though I was on the table for 7 hours getting my heart zapped, the technique and equipment are much, much better now-so as odd as it sounds, it was not as invasive to my body as it was 5 years ago. I still have some spectacular bruising where they had the femoral lines in my groin, but you cannot even see where they had the catheter in my neck. Really-I am feeling better.

Enough about me.

There was a lot of rugby last week. My Metropolis Rugby Club went to South Carolina, and lost a close game to Norfolk RFC, 18-12 in the Division I round of 16. They won the consolation match the next day against Media RFC. Interestingly, in the quarterfinals, Norfolk got beat by Palmer College of Chiropractic-a team Metropolis has defeated twice in the past year. In a side note, Palmer's run to the Semi-finals gave a last-minute stay of execution to a rugby program that was on the chopping block.http://www.rugbymag.com/news/clubs/mensclubs/palmer-winning-helps-rescue-program.aspx On the bright side, this means that Metropolis really does belong among the top sides in American Division I rugby. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this past year has been the most successful year ever for the Minneapolis-based club.

In Europe, Guy Noves' men in red and black beat Biarritz in an all French Heineken Cup Final at the Stade de France, Toulouse's record 4th European Crown. http://www.ercrugby.com/eng/5019_15686.php Toulouse was the better side on the day in a match that had a great ambiance at the Stade de France. After the match, it was announced that former French international scrum half Jean-Baptiste Ellisalde was going to retire as a player with Toulouse and will join the coaching staff. Guy Noves rested key players the week before in the French Top 14 Semi-finals, sacrificing a chance at a double when his second choice team fell to Perpignan. Toulouse's win in the Heineken Cup final vindicated his decision to go all out for European glory.

The Super 14 final this weekend will have a very South African flavor as the holders, the Blue Bulls will take on the Stormers this weekend, in what should be a fantastic match up with some interesting side stories, as former Blue Bull, and current Springbok winger Bryan Habana will take on his former mates wearing the colors of the team from Cape Town that will be making it's first ever Super 14 Final. The Stormers ground out a win at Newlands against the Waratahs, and the Bulls outscored the Crusaders.

This final will pit the two best fly halves in South Africa in Peter Grant for the Stormers, and Morne Steyn for the Bulls. One area to watch for, is if the Stormers 6 foot 11 second row, Andries Bekker,  can challenge the Bulls for supremacy in the air on the line outs-an area that the Bulls own against most opposition. If Schalk Burger can perform his terrier-like work at the break down, the Stormers just MIGHT have a chance at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto. I just think the Bulls are going to be too much for the team from Cape Town. I think the Bulls will win their 3rd Super 14 title, and second in a row today.

With the English and Magner's League titles on the line this weekend, the match that has my interest is one that I won't be able to see until the highlights are on You Tube: The battle for Le Bouclier de Brennus, the holy graal of French Rugby will be on the line as Perpignan looks to cap off a great season with a second straight French title. Standing in their path will be the Wil E Coyote of French Rugby...yes, I am talking about Clermont Auvergne. The Michelen Men will be in their 4th straight final and 11 th overall. They are THE Bridesmaid in French rugby, never lifting Le Bouclier de Brennus. At the Stade de France today, it will be an army of gold-clad fans from the Auvergne hoping that today will be the day win Clermont will finally trade in their bridesmaid dress for a bride's bouquet.

Out of Comission

Been a crazy weekend with work, my grandmother's funeral service, and on Monday Morning, I am going to be getting a cardiac ablation done to hopefully knock out my now recurrent atrial fibrillation/flutter.  http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cardiac-ablation/my00706

I will be out for a couple of days. When I get out of the hospital, I can finally see Toulouse-Biarritz, the Super 14 Semi-finals and comment on them. Have a great week, I will just be out of blogging action for a couple of days.

A Timely Death

In the news we often here the term "an untimely death". In the rugby community that has been true with the recent deaths of Matt Comstock of my Metropolis Rugby Club at the age of 47. A couple of weeks back, Milwaukee Harlequins player Philippe "Fiji"Leka http://www.milwaukeeharlequins.com/News/Players-and-Family/Good-bye-my-brother.html died as a result of injuries incurred playing rugby.

My paternal Grandmother, Harriet Adams, died yesterday at the age of 93. She was a remarkable woman who had a very, very profound impact in my life. She instilled in me, a great love of animals as well as a desire to travel to places beyond my native Minnesota. She helped my insatiable desire to read by providing me with a plethora of books from her house in Richfield was an oasis of calm during some trying times when I was a kid, during the time when my mom and dad were going through their divorce. Some of my fondest memories were of going through old National Geographic magazines in her attic.

In a world filled with people who have nothing but complaints about how messed up their childhoods might have been, my grandmother would tell anybody who would listen that she had a wonderful childhood in Pepin, Wisconsin. She had a great relationship with her mother, dad and her older brother Leon.  She used tell me and my brother and sisters stories about her idyllic childhood growing up on the banks of the Mississippi river and Lake Pepin. It was a childhood filled with animals, playing in the woods, swimming, pranks such as tipping over cows or outhouses.  She told us tales of when her Swedish grandmother married her German grandfather, and how at the turn of the century in the upper midwest, that was considered a "mixed marriage."

My Grandmother went to school to be a hair dresser in Minneapolis, but met and married my grandfather instead. During the Second World War, my grandfather was away helping to build air bases in Alaska and Hawaii.Together they ended up running "Adams Doggie Shop", and raised my dad and my Aunt Kay with discipline and hardy work ethic that was very common of people who lived through the Great Depression. Back then, when you owned a pet shop or boarded dogs and cats, you did not get many days off. It was hard work, but my grandparents saved and invested well so that they left the pet shop business back in 1971, so that they could retire and have some free time.

She had two guilty pleasures: Sweets and travel. As a kid, I remember her taking me and my siblings either to the soda fountain at Snyder's Drug Store, or an ice cream sundae at Bridgeman's(Alas, both places are now closed down) When she retired, she spent the better part of the next 20 years globe trotting to places that, at the time, were unimaginable for a women in her golden years: Siberia, Mongolia, the Amazon, China, Patagonia, Australia, Tangiers...my grandmother had a huge map of the world in her basement by the bar that had red pins of all of the places she had been to over the years. The only continent she never made it to was Antarctica-it was not for lack of wanting...she wanted to go the Antarctic, but could find nobody in her peer group who shared her passion to rough it at that level.

My grandfather died in 1978. My grandmother had no desire, nor inclination to remarry. She was a fiercely independent woman who wanted to do things her way, when and how she wanted them. She continued to be independent and sharp as a tack well into her 90th year. Not a day went by without devouring the Minneapolis Star Tribune and doing the crossword puzzles...Three and a half year's ago  she had a bad fall and head injury. It was an injury that would put my grandmother on a 3 year journey to the depths of dementia. This very proud woman eventually needed somebody to live with her 24/7. As the dementia progressed, it was obvious that it was bothering her that she was no longer in control of her life. In the past year, she started to have more issues with chronic, but severe back pain.

  When I saw her last week, the once proud and lively eyes were cloudy-Her face grimacing in pain. Her once carrot-red hair now white. Her freckled face now a ghostly white. My daughter and I both talked in the car ride back home of how tough it was seeing grandma like this.

Yesterday, my dad called me to tell me to come over to her house. She had just died. She had been awake that morning, was out in her easy chair, had a hard time getting comfortable and asked dad to bring her back to her bed. Dad noticed that she was starting to work harder to breath and stayed with her, holding her hand until she breathed no more. My son Ian, his fiancee` Andrea and my grandson Duncan went over to her house. Ian and I both went into my grandmother's room and looked at the now lifeless body of a woman who had been such a big part of our lives.  To be honest, I have not been able to cry yet. This was a woman who was so racked with pain and discomfort, it was actually a relief to see her suffering no more. In her case, it was a Timely Death.

A big part of my life is now gone. You don't always see it happen where somebody can die at home, in their own bed, with a loved one holding their hand. I don't think grandma could have scripted it any better.

26

Man (And Woman) does not live by rucking and mauling alone.

Today marks the 26th anniversary of my marriage with my lovely Red-Head.

I cannot take her out tonight, as I have to work this evening at the VA Medical Center, but tomorrow, I plan on taking her out to Vincent, a French Restaurant here in Minneapolis.  "Why a French restaurant?", you might ask. Well, it's a long story.... http://nursedude.blog.com/2007/04/28/getting-a-wife-while-going-to-college-the-gift-that-keeps-giving/

My wife was very supportive when I first suited up to play rugby 4 years ago, as a 45 year old. A lot of women would have scoffed at my middle-aged madness, but my wife was very encouraging and supportive with me playing rugby. (That's me binding next to Denny, the Bearded guy on the right)

Oh yeah...she still looks pretty darned good too.

Happy Anniversary, honey.