How my children, their spouses and grandkids saved Christmas

Children and grandkids save the holidays.

Without them, my Christmas 2013 would have gone down as one of the most dismal, personally, in my six decades on this planet.

Approaching 92, my father is frail and just plain tired; his telephone conversations with me from an assisted care center in Spokane, Washington, have degenerated over the past year.

Where once he showed interest in our lives in Utah, and told me corny jokes, now he dwells in the negative.

I don't mean it as a criticism. I understand, and in his shoes, would likely share the sentiment.

But when you are trying everything you can think of to provide care and security from 800 miles away, the dark conversations can wear one down.

For me, the doses of old age depression come twice a week: that's how often I call, usually once early in the week and again on the weekend.

I've grown to dread these calls. Sometimes, it takes me several hours to work up to the 15-20 minutes of complaints, confusion, anger I hear. 

By this Christmas, I'm afraid, the weight of being upbeat and encouraging had morphed from being a loving gift to an emotionally draining act fueled by guilt and duty.

Again, I don't for a second forget it is worse for my father and mother. He is still alert, albeit depressed (I have asked the nursing staff to explore antidepressants for him); my 86-year-old mother, with her rapidly worsening Alzheimer's disease, is forgetting everything and everyone -- except frustrations over her confusion and the paranoia of dementia.

My heart breaks for them, and the tears do come.

But it is not just my parents. There has always been, overshadowing our lives as a family, my sister. Cerebral Palsy and brain damage in the womb left her the eternally crippled 5 year old. . . three years older than me, yet always the little sister.

The wild mood swings, from giddy happiness to rage in the blink of an eye, finally made it impossible for my parents to care for her. When I was 11, she entered institutional residency, and now lives in a group home.

I have always called the folks and her for the holidays though. Merry Christmas? My father, understandably, wasn't feeling it this year. Mom, who can no longer communicate in anything but gibberish, would not even take the phone. I admit, part of me was relieved.

When I called my sister, the irony hit me: For the first time I could remember, she not only could communicate better than my mother, but seemed the only one in our nuclear family to be happy.

So, there is the overly long prelude to my opening statement.

Suffice it to say, I was feeling especially down, worn out, spiritually depleted when my wife, Barbara, and I went over for a Christmas dinner at my son Rob's house. Our daughter-in-law, Rachel, had prepared a vegetarian feast. Warm hugs, conversation, and playing with their two dogs was a welcome respite, along with a group phone call from our grandson, Josh.

Then, we Skyped with our daughter, Brenda, and son-in-law Idal, granddaughter Lela and new grandson Gabriel. Seeing and hearing the joy of the children, Lela, at 6, opening our presents; Gabriel taking a bottle from his parents, cooing and smiling -- and crying a bit, too -- provided perspective, and not a little joy.

Belatedly, it reminded me of my own childhood Christmases. More than a few of them were magical, I now recall. 

I remembered the smiles, when they were witty and happy and healthy, of my parents; my sister's always childlike laughter with a new doll or stuffed animal; my own gifts from the folks, with the realization that they sacrificed much to make the moments happen . . . that they loved me, and that we were -- however unique -- a family.

For me, the best part as a child would be Christmas Eves. I would sneak out of my bedroom after the folks and sis were asleep, curl up on the couch and just watch the lights blink and shine on the tinsel of the Christmas tree.

The pine scent filled the house, and the essence of peace, love and safety would eventually send me, yawning, back beneath the covers.

Thanks, kids, and grandkids, for reminding me.

Marital Sea Change: Same-sex, polygamous rulings death knell for dominance of 'traditional' secular marriages?

So, is the cultural and legal sea change toward same-sex marriage a portent for unraveling of traditional marriage as we have known it?

Of course it is. You must decide yourself, according to your own beliefs and conscience, whether that is a bad thing or some sort of societal leap forward.

I can hear the cries of "hater!" and "bigot!" now, but hear me out: my opening statement is rational and, to my mind, irrefutably logical.

In the past two weeks in the state of Utah, arguably the bastion of all things conservative and where voters overwhelmingly voted to limit marriage legally to one man and one woman, not less than TWO court decisions have turned the world on its head, marriage-wise.

Both came from the federal courts. First, a judge gutted Utah's long-time law banning polygamous marriages (a historical move that cleared the way for statehood more than a century ago, when the Mormon prophet gave up the doctrine of plural marriage).

Equal protection under the law, and the inability of the state to argue the harm to society, et al, were keys to that decision.

Ditto for another federal judge's decision late last week striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

Monday morning, hundreds of gays and lesbians lined up at courthouses to get their licenses, where clerks were under orders to comply with the ruling.

Of course, the state of Utah is appealing both decisions. But the historical course is inevitable. Both decisions, sooner or later, will be upheld. 

This fight may not be over, but it is decided.  

The next battleground could, and likely will be whether, and to what extent, business owners and churches can exercise their faith-based resistance to the morphing definition of marriage.

Talking whether a bakery or caterer can legally bow out of a same-sex event, or whether a church can keep its tax-exempt status, or ability to perform "legal" marriages, if it does not conform to the politically correct tides.

Same-sex marriage/rights advocates argue that will never happen . . . just as they did that approving same-sex marriage rights would not have a slippery slope effect where polygamy would benefit from the same arguments.

What IS marriage, legally? It IS, regardless the apologists' who insist the LGBT Pandora's Box has not been toppled, a definition that is now wide open . . . if not in actuality now, inevitably later.

If same-sex marriage is legal, and if polygamy is legal, where are the restrictions for anyone, other than minors, engaging in this particular legal contract, etc.? 

 

Why not, then, a bisexual/polygamous marriage or any other variation of genders and numbers of partners? 

Any attempt to place limits on marriage, by any definition, will be mortally wounded by the same arguments that got us to this point.

Decades ago, I read a science fiction series where in marriages varied by gender, number and even the definition of what was "human."

One "family" consisted of a man who had cloned himself multiple times, at various ages, and married him-selves as well as other men and women and artificial intelligences.

Then, I thought: What an imagination!

Now? Not so much.

I don't have the answers to this whole thing. And I refuse to be the judge of others. Not my job.

But as an historian, and a believer, I have to observe that when spiritually informed morality is removed from the societal equation, as we seem to have done with our secular society, the very fabric of its institutions can become, certainly, unrecognizable, and perhaps unraveled . . . if not in present fact, then possibly in future reality.

Duck Dynasty: Belief, free speech and the tyrrany of political correctness

So, "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson expresses his faith, and his biblically based belief in "traditional" family structure and "normal" sexuality.

And, he gets suspended from the most popular TV show on the air.

He also has become the cause célèbre for a large, if increasingly reviled segment of American society under an unrelenting attack from the so-called "tolerant" among us.

Tolerant, that is, unless someone had the audacity to dispute the mantra now in vogue by the extreme Left. Tolerant, until someone suggests he or she views any behavior – let alone sexual behavior – a “sin.”

Everyone these days seems to want a smiling, laughing, never judgmental God, and anything – including His purported Word to the contrary – is swept under the metaphysical carpet, as it were.

The crudity of Robertson's discussion of sexual preference for vaginas over anuses makes one wince. It also goes the the heart of the argument that, for the first time in history, how someone decides to sate his or her sexual urges has become equated with racial, ethnic, political and religious minorities and how they were treated in the past.

It's the supposed new "civil rights" movement, we're told. But I wonder how someone's honestly held, indeed once universally held views that biological construction and purpose point to male-female unions rather than colonic, same-sex coitus as not only the norm, but the Design.

That is essentially what Robertson said, albeit in far more graphic, earthy terms.

I grew up during what I dare to call the real Civil Rights era, when African-Americans and those supporting them literally put their lives on the line to end institutionalized discrimination in education, business and at the ballot box.

Sorry, but I do find it difficult to extrapolate that to the call today to gag the free, albeit unpopular speech of anyone.

And yes, that also means the free expression of anyone -- gay, straight, liberal, conservative, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist -- to say what they think without the fist of political correctness slamming them into the ground.

Disagree today with a liberal about the failures of the Obama administration, or suggest that marriage was and always has been, heretofore, between males and females, and you are labeled a bigot, thrown into the same "hate" group as Nazis, the KKK and the Taliban.

Lost in the rush to PC judgment is the fact that folks like Robertson are not advocating any form of discrimination against gays, and in fact have made it clear they strive to treat everyone fairly. The issue, for them, is a moral one, based on their beliefs.

Other Christians have differing opinions on any number of issues, including homosexuality. But they are largely ignored in the rush to throw anyone with evangelical Christian roots into the same intellectual gulag.

I, for one, recognize two things: First, I cherish friends I have who happen to be gay; to me, if their lifestyle is “sinful,” then so are those of other friends who cheat on their spouses, their taxes or their commitment to provide a fair day's work for their wages. 

The more strident among us, believers and unbelievers, tend to forget that we are, all of us, sinners and can only be “saved” through grace.

And second, that being the case, I am content to love all my friends and leave judgment to God . . . and I suspect He is and will be far more compassionate that any of us can comprehend, or deserve.

But back to Robertson and "Duck Dynasty." A&E's reaction may have been knee-jerk, a decision driven by reaction to the outrage of some who seek to muzzle the new dissidents in our society. But it also is A&E's right to do so. Employees these days are let go for far less, even no reason, being more and more "at will" staff. 

 

There always is a price to pay for standing up for what you believe, and sometimes -- due to questionable judgment in how that is done -- the price can be high.

But given the strongly pro-Robertson reaction thus far -- petitions, statements of support by celebrities, etc. -- perhaps A&E should look more to its bottom line.

A lesson in grace: Alzheimer's a sorrow for caregivers, a horror for spouses

A lesson in grace.

I am one of those Baby-Boomers trying to oversee the care of my elderly parents. 

 

In my 91-year-old father's case, it is a matter of a still sharp, though unchallenged mind trapped inside a frail, failing body.

The opposite is true of my 86-year-old mother. Her physical health is fairly good; it is her mind, rapidly being destroyed by Alzheimer's disease, that is the biggest challenge.

And, it is a challenge beyond resolution.

My epiphany this week is NOT those realizations, however.

Rather, I have learned that the grief, helplessness and frustration I feel over their not-so-golden years pales when I allow imagination to let me live for a second or two in their minds, their spirits

.

Inside a small room, my father is more than just trapped in a body too weak to move more than a dozen steps at a time. He is trapped 24/7 with the shell of the woman he married 65 years ago, a remarkable woman once vivacious and mentally sharp, but now unable to speak a coherent sentence or remember what she did five minutes before.

That does not, however, stop her from babbling, stringing words together, all day long -- and in her sleep -- that apparently only she knows the meaning of.

And that, I realize, would drive me mad. Quickly.

Finally, it has driven my always stoic, generally positive father into depression.

Dad had endured for the past year and a half as Mom's Alzheimer's ravaged her mind and memories. Last night, it was just too much.

"I'm just tired of opposing," he said when I made one of my bi-weekly calls.

In the code language we have adopted (since Mom has, occasionally, flown into a rage at any perceived criticism overheard) he was telling me he's exhausted by the losing battle to find some emotional equilibrium for Mom and himself.

Then, unable to speak any longer as he choked up, he put down the phone. Mom picked it up.

"Er, Mom, how are you?"

"Mom?" Confused.

"Yes. You are my Mom. I'm your son, Bob Jr."

"What? That's funny. Who?"

And so it goes.

She hung up.

At least, in forgetting her children, she doesn't have the pain of missing them. So, there's that.

But I mourn her. So much of her has died, even as what little remains continues to fade within a body that has outlived its owner.

You do what you can. 

 

In this case, it was calling the medical provider for my father and asking he be evaluated for anti-depressants.

Then, I prayed.