On Living Life Now

The greatest lesson my father gave me was in his death.

A few months before Daddy died, he confided in me how angry he was about the whole situation.  He was deeply, deeply pissed off that he wasn't going to have the life he had envisioned for himself. He said,

My dad got 30 years of retirement to do whatever he wanted. And what do I get?

Poppy used to joke that Emily thought he'd never had a job, because he retired the same year she was born. And it's true that he lived another 29 years — a third of his life — not going to work day in and day out.

My dad didn't hate his job, but neither did he love it.  He went to college because his father wanted him to. He got a business degree (instead of an art, music, or other degree he might have been better suited for) because that's what his father wanted. And then he went to work for Southwestern Bell (later AT&T) because it was a secure, comfortable job that supported his family.

But he didn't love it.

He pursued his passions on the side. He did his art and played his guitars. He tried out photography, sculpture, and pen and ink drawing. But there was never enough time. There was a lawn that constantly needed mowing, stuff to fix around the house, kids to pick up and drop off.

So he was, naturally, really looking forward to retirement.  He never got it.

He retired to take care of his father in 2012. About six months later, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

He got six months when he had expected 20 years or more.

Is it a sad story? Sure it is. Don't get me wrong; I believe my dad lived a good life, but I still have trouble reconciling the time I feel he should have had with the hand he got dealt.

But the positive side of it is this: I realized what he was really telling me.  Live in the now. Make the life you have the life you want to live. Don't settle.

As I write this, I feel deeply, deeply grateful that I've been able to do just that. I've created a job for myself that puts me at home, with you. It lets me earn money to support our family, do something I actually enjoy, and be more of the mom I want to be.

I'm living the life I wish my dad could have had. I'm doing it because he showed me how important it is.

There's always going to be stuff we don't want to do in life. There's always laundry to fold, grass to mow, jobs we don't love (hopefully to get us to one we do). That doesn't change. But living with the idea that we are in charge, that we can create the life we want to live — and the knowledge that we must do it now, not wait for later — that is the powerful lesson he left me with.

Don't wait to live your life later, because later may never come.

On Driving

My grandfather taught me to drive a stick shift.

I was 15 or 16 and very reluctant to get my driver's license. We went to El Paso to visit my grandparents that summer, and my grandfather offered to take me out in their Nissan Z to teach me to drive.

I knew the basic mechanics of how to clutch, how to shift, etc.  But he gave me some of the best advice I've ever gotten that day, for driving and for life:

Pick a spot in the road and drive to it.

It seems innocuous at first, but I've thought of it often in tense driving situations. You only have to focus on the stretch of road right in front of you. Nothing more.

As I've gotten older, it's also come to mean more to me in a general sense about life. Goals are important, but they don't have to be monumental. In fact, sometimes just focusing on a goal you can see — a milestone you know you can achieve — can be the most beneficial.

Just pick a spot in the road, and drive to it.

On Love

My mother always said that the best advice she ever got from her father was this:

Find a man who will love you more than himself — when it matters.

I saw this realized in a letter my grandfather wrote my grandmother in 1964(?) before he underwent open heart surgery. It was a very risky procedure back then, and he knew he might not survive. He wrote my grandmother a letter, detailing many of the bits and pieces she might need to know if he died, including his life insurance policies, how he thought she should deal with the cars and the house, etc.  And at the end, he said this:

Do not doubt that this is a love letter.

It most certainly was. My grandfather was an infinitely practical man, and in trying to ease the burdens he was afraid he might leave my grandmother if he died, he was doing all he knew to show he loved her.

He survived the operation and lived for another twenty-plus years. We found the letter in my grandmother's papers after she died, 13 years after him.