Category Archives: Family

It was a fall day, but it must have been warm enough to ride our bikes, because my brother and I were speeding down Lincoln and turning onto Romeyn as the wind whipped more leaves from the trees. The once-green canopy of maples and oaks littered the streets, sidewalks and lawns. Shiny black garbage bags lined the curbs and the cutting scent of wood smoke filled the air. Soon, it would be impossible to ride our bikes anywhere until after the winter thawed. We pedaled harder to outrun the advance of time. As we neared the bottom of Pershing Road, we skidded to a stop in the leaves. I remember the feel of their crunchy points, and the asphalt hidden beneath them.

A large log – the carcass of some decayed and fallen tree – rested at the bottom of the street. Intriguingly hollowed out by time and circumstance, it was like some fairy-tale object from the forest, incongruously dropped at the edge of the street. We moved closer to it and examined its soft, mossy exterior. As I peered into the dark hole, looking for some chipmunk or other woodland denizen to be asleep in its shelter, my brother kicked the other end of the log. A swarm (okay, maybe five or six) hornets or bees flew into my face. I got stung near my eye, which promptly began to swell itself shut, and the pain was horrendous. “Why did you do that?!” I screamed as I began pedaling furiously home. Such is the stuff of brothers – and it goes both ways.

Two babies could not have been born further apart in the calendar year. The most distant dates possible (February 25 and August 24) marked when my brother and I came into the world. Following such a pre-destined journey of diametrically opposed lives, we have lived up to those dates and are as different as two brothers could possibly be. Yet through it all, there was a closeness forged in the first part of our formative years, when some of us have our happiest memories, that can never be altered or taken away, no matter what paths we make and take.

Brothers know each other’s weak spots, their sensitive issues, their strengths, and their merits. They know how to get under each other’s skin like no one else, and they have the weapons of a shared childhood and history to wage the dirtiest wars imaginable. As such, I marvel that some of us maintain such good relationships. Ours is far from perfect, but the love at its core has seen us through the argumentative periods. He’s the only brother I have, and that’s something that neither of us has taken for granted.

On this day, I wish him a very happy birthday, and I count myself the luckier of us both because I get to have him as my brother.

{Background note: the featured photo here was taken on a summer vacation at, you guessed it, Disneyworld in Florida. Check out the matching t-shirts. I tucked. He didn’t. Opposites in every way.}

They wheeled her into the room during a tense time. I can’t put my finger on what was wrong, and this was, after all, just a dream, but even in dreams the ominous can be felt. The atmosphere just felt worrisome, the way you feel when you’ve forgotten something but don’t yet realize what it is. She looked tiny, much smaller than the childhood memories I have of this grand woman, who always seemed larger than life. Now, in my dream, her hair was shrunken like the rest of her, and her legs were so diminutive that at first I thought they were gone.

My grandmother, gone from this earth for a few years, now visiting my dreams, and looking, despite her size and wheelchair, full of color and life. Her skin was no longer pale or addled with veins. It glowed a healthy color. Around her head an aura glistened like sun on the sea. Yet it was her eyes that transfixed me most: they sparkled.

Then the dream was done, and the uneasiness that has plagued my nights of late returned in the dark and empty room.

It’s been a while since I’ve spent some quality time with my nephew and niece, so I assembled a treasure hunt at our home, and asked my Mom to drop them off for a couple of hours of Uncle babysitting. Some planning was required beforehand, with a few ‘treasures’ that needed to be buried in order to look like they’d been there for a while, and the making of a treasure map.

The map had to look distressed and old. Some rolling and weathering, along with judicious burning of the edges, contributed to its ancient feel, and I placed it in a corner of the storage attic, telling the twins I thought I had seen it around there and sending them in to find it on their own, Goonies-style. I think they were onto me, but they went along with just enough suspension of disbelief to enjoy the adventure.

The day started out sunny, but the cold soon advanced, and some strange cloud-cover issued spells of snow during part of our backyard journey. With Halloween just around the corner, I had added a few elements of spookiness to the trail that led to the treasure: a half-way buried skull in the ‘secret passageway’ (the dark walkway – only allowing enough room for a small child – between a towering hedge of Thuja and an old fence) and a pair of ‘Fairy Trap Kits’ that held all the lures to capture those pesky fairies (who could be both good or bad depending on what lesson one was trying to impart).

For those who do not know about the best ways to catch a fairy, the most effective bait is a mixture of glitter, feathers, bells, and the tiniest little clothespins (because fairies are constantly in need of clothespins).

At one point in the path, I’d suspended two small nets of chocolate coins. Hung by relatively-invisible clear plastic thread, they seemed to float in the air, gently spinning and swaying, and the kids were so eager to grab at them they barely noticed the string.

After making it to the end of the hunt, digging up their buried treasure (don’t tell them, but the jewels were made of plastic), and exhausting themselves with some fairy-trap-setting, we headed into the warmth of the house, with cups of hot cocoa and miniature marshmallows. From there we watched for signs of fairies, while Uncle Andy and Emi had a heart-to-heart over cocoa.

Being that my Dad’s birthday falls rather inauspiciously on September 11, I always miss out on the public well-wishes for his special day. Here they are now, a day late, but with no less love or fanfare. Earlier this summer, he had a series of health issues which scared me to the core, and it made me wonder what a world without him would be like. I didn’t, and I don’t, want to face that, and if this birthday means a little more because of it, I’m happy that it’s so.

Every boy who’s lucky enough to have a father can’t help but look up to him. Every boy who has a father as good as mine holds him in iconic status, no matter what he does. That doesn’t change as we grow up. If anything, my love and respect for my Dad has grown in stature, as has my understanding of the man who left the Philippines, and the only life and family he knew, to make a better life for himself – and his future family. I’ve never forgotten that – and I never will.

Happy Birthday, Dad – I love you.

My Dad’s Father’s Day gift came a day early, as he was discharged from the hospital after over a week of care following some surgery complications. There’s really no greater gift, and I only hope he keeps recovering – drinking his fluids, eating his healthy food, and getting better. He’s had a difficult few months – first breaking his arm, then having his gall bladder removed – and this latest complication had me more worried than usual.

As I watched him sitting on his hospital bed, it struck me that he looked a little like my nephew Noah – wide-eyed and innocent, and in need of just a little help. Luckily my Mom was staying with him, and I realized once again what a blessing it was to have medical people in the family. The hospital is a scary place without some inside knowledge (and even that won’t get you through the ER admission process any faster.)

I’m wishing him an extra-special Father’s Day, and somehow I value him just a bit more this year. I love you, Dad.

When faced with a choice between attending a child’s dance recital or a graduation ceremony, always choose the latter. Don’t make the common mistake of thinking a dance recital will be more exciting and bearable – it will just be longer – much much MUCH longer. Andy and I won’t be able to make this year’s dance recital (and I swear it’s not because we planned to attend ‘Kinky Boots’ that night, it just happily worked out that way.) We did, however, make it to the pre-school graduation ceremony. Noah and Emi played, wait for it, Noah (of big boat biblical fame) and… umm, Mrs. Noah. (Figures that women didn’t even get names back in the time of the Great Flood. Thank God the teacher said Emi would make a great Miss America so she knows there are other career choices out there.) Nobody ever said I’d make a great Miss America, and I do feel I’ve suffered because of it.

The twins couldn’t have cared less. They just wanted to get home and open their presents.

More importantly, they wanted to begin their first and last summer before Kindergarten. That’s certainly reason to smile.

Milo’s favorite number may be five, but he’ll have to wait one more year before that’s how old he is. In the meantime, he will have to celebrate number four with this cake from Andy. In the first picture, he reminds me so much of his grandfather in that mischievous grin that it’s almost spooky – in a good way.

Some posts don’t need prose, just a few favorite faces.

Being a parent is the most difficult job in the world. I don’t have the selflessness, time or money that go into raising a child, and I always knew that. It helped that I never had the desire, but more people need to make that choice based on their circumstances. Fortunately, my Mom and Dad planned for my brother and myself. We never wanted for anything because they had the foresight and love to make sure we were set to attend college, see a bit of the world, and never go to bed hungry. That was my Mom’s big thing: she never wanted us to go to bed hungry, because when she was little she sometimes did. Those are the things that I remember.

On this Mother’s Day, I honor the woman who gave up so much because she had grown up with so little. We didn’t get a chance to do our annual Broadway trip yet, but hopefully we’ll schedule something for late summer or early fall to make up for it. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!