Life

I blogged a few weeks ago about Ray Rice, then the full video was released and he was released by the Baltimore Ravens and suspended by the NFL.  Since the fall out of the incident, several other NFL players have been either arrested and/or it come to light that they had hit their spouse or significant other.  Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Ray McDonald, Jonathan Dwyer, and though Adrian Peterson didn’t hit his spouse, it is alleged that he hit his son(s).

So here is the question, why? Why do men feel the need to hit women or their kids? I was not raised that way and I sure as heck will not raise my children to ever raise their hands to a woman and make her feel scared. Each case is different. Each case is currently being tried in a court of public opinion, but not in a court of law. Ray Rice’s case is not up for being reconsidered, as it would fall under double jeopardy, but McDonald, Dwyer and Peterson will have their day in court.

As father’s, it is our job to raise our sons to be leaders, role models, respected men in the communities, not beating those that can not defend themselves.  There are several issues at hand & these are strictly my opinions:

1) The NFL has not acted swiftly enough or handed out strict penalties thus far for domestic violence crimes.
2) For the record, I do not fall in the category of those that believe that the Baltimore Ravens conspired with the NFL to get Ray Rice a shorter sentence. I was fortunate enough to meet Ray a few years ago and he could not have been nicer to my sons. He talked with them and interacted with them and signed a photo for them. Was the Ray Rice incident blown out of proportion? In my opinion, no. From what I saw in the video, he punched his now wife in the face. Should be suspended indefinitely, no, as he needs to earn a living. But, does that mean that he should sit out a year, or two, yes. But that is up to the commissioner of the NFL. 3) Our society, especially father’s, are not there for their kids. I don’t mean all the time, but father’s and I am included in this, need to be present more for our kids. They want and need our attention, so shouldn’t we give that to them? Shouldn’t we want to put our phones away and spend time with our kids? But in doing so, we need to ensure that we are teaching our kids right from wrong, good vs. evil, etc.
4) As it pertains to the Peterson case, if it is true that he just spanked his son with a switch, let’s be honest, there are not enough jail cells in America to hold all  of our grandparents and parents. But, again, if we as father’s show that we don’t have to spank first and then talk to our kids, but reverse that so that we talk with our children, I really believe that we will get things going on the right track.

Having worked with professional athletes before, both at the MLB level, as well as the NFL, it is easy to get caught up in the hype that these guys play a game that we all love. But they are humans. They do bleed if you cut them. They will snap if you push too hard. It appears that the public is starting to grow weary of the NFL and the antics of some of their players. But until the NFL really gets serious, does any of this matter?

Father’s spend time with your kids. Talk with them. Take an interest. DON’T BECOME A STATISTIC.

The NFL is just a game, but hurting a spouse or child is a life altering decision.  Domestic violence is a serious thing and NO ONE should live a life of fear.

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it is about 11pm and I am sitting out on the porch at the beach, doing a little star gazing. And I wonder if the stars got a little brighter tonight?

I got a call around 7pm from my Godfather, but since I was putting the boys to bed, I had to let the  call goto voice mail.  This was not our usual call about the Yankees, politics, UNC basketball or the boys.  This was a call to let me know that this brother in law, a man that I have known my whole life, was caught if a rip current today and died.

After hours of phone tag and text messages, I just got word that George passed away.  I can’t sleep.  I mourn for BJ & the boys.  I mourn for my Godfather tonight. I remember George being larger than life.  I just saw BJ a few months ago.  This doesn’t seem real.

So tonigtt, I say a prayer for the family and for Geoger’s soul.  I pray that BJ is strong through this and is comforted by those around her.

And tonight, as I rock, looking at the ocean and listening to the waves crash & watching distant lightening crashes, I am start gazing and trying to make sense out of something that dowse t make sense.

Tomorrow, I will hug the boys tighter and I will treasure the moment, as that is all that we have.

 

 

 

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I don’t have many memories of one of my grandfathers, but one memory that I do have is that when I would see him, we would get in the car, just he and I and we would go and get Strawberry Ice Cream. How I can remember this, I’m not really sure, especially considering the fact that my Grandfather died when I was in 1st grade.

I remember a lot about the day that he died. I remember being pulled from class and talk with the principal. I remember my mother crying and we left school early that day. I remember asking my mom if my Grandfather was going to buy me Strawberry Ice Cream that afternoon and she just cried.

Years pass and not a lot is talked about my Grandfather. Not sure why? But last night, of all nights, my sons ate 4 chicken nuggets, 4 large strawberries and a handful of string beans. And after they finished it up, Baby A looked up and saw an ice cream cone and asked for Strawberry Ice Cream.

In that moment, I was transported back to when I was a little boy. I was taken back to when I was a kid, asking my Grandfather for Strawberry Ice Cream. But tonight, both boys, after they literally cleaned their plates, they both asked for Strawberry Ice Cream and in that second, I remembered my Grandfather. I remembered those Sundays at the Ice Cream place. I tried one other Ice Cream, I didn’t like it and he immediately asked for Strawberry Ice Cream and he quickly ordered it for me.

I could do no wrong in my Grandfather’s eyes. I was his only Grandson. And tonight, my son’s could do no wrong. We sat at the table and laughed and talked and ate Ice Cream, Strawberry Ice Cream cones, just like I did when I was their age.

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Sometimes, life can be a challenge, but it is how we over come and deal with the challenge.

Sometimes, we have days that make us question things, but it is our faith that gets us through.

Sometimes, we have struggle to make sense of the unknown, but it is our trust in God that help us over come that struggle.

Sometimes, we need to need to find the goodness when it doesn’t seem to be any, and those are the days that I can walk in and the boys run and hug me and life seems to make sense.

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There are things that happen in our lives that we can not explain. There are things that happen in our lives that will stay with us forever and today is that day for me. 5 years ago today, my mother in law was killed in a tragic car accident. There are things about that day that I can tell you about, but a lot of it is a blur, but here are some of the things that I do remember:

  • I remember that it was snowing and had started snowing earlier that morning.
  • I remember getting the phone call from my father in law while I was sitting at work after lunch..
  • I remember listening to Mark Schultz’s Remember Me when the phone rang.
  • I remember sitting back down, putting my head down and crying. Crying for the loss of an amazing person, but crying because I was going to have to go and tell my wife of 3 months that her mother and best friend had just died and it was going to break my wife’s heart. It was going to change her forever.It was going to change us.
  • I remember the 8 miles from my office to my wife’s seemed like 180 miles.
  • I remember calling my wife’s best friend and telling him, as he was a 2nd child to my wife’s parents.
  • I remember not being able to talk for 10 minutes and only being able to cry in front of my wife.
  • I remember my wife asking if we were getting a divorce, because I could not stop crying. That would have been easier I think.
  • I remember the drive from my wife’s office to her Dad’s house seemed like forever.
  • I remember her father coming outside when we got there to hug my wife and myself.
  • I remember a family friend that grabbed me and held me as tight as he could, and I finally got to grieve for a few minutes.
  • I remember the outpouring of people that came to the house that night.
  • I remember waking up after 15 minutes of sleep and having a feeling of calmness come over me.
  • I remember the silence in the house.

Here is the song by Mark Schultz, Remember Me, that I was listening to when I got the call, that Monday afternoon.

Sometimes things do not make sense, especially when death is involved. I can say that after a lot of struggles, my wife and I learned a lot of amazing lessons from this. My wife and I are closer. My wife and I have two amazing little boys. My wife my and I often talk about that day. We talk about what we were doing, we often cry and then  we talk about how much we miss her mom. We talk about how she would be with the boys and how much she would have loved them.

But tonight, I just think that we have to look for the Remembrance of God in the form of sunsets and people. We have to take each moment as it is our last. We have to over use the words “I Love You”, because you never know when it will be the last time that you will use them.

Remember me
When the color of the sunset fills the sky
Remember me
When you pray and the tears of joy
fall from your eyes

I remember and can not, nor will I ever forget. I just hope that when it is my time, that Jesus will Remember Me.  And I hope that one of the first people that I get to see when getting to Heaven, is my mother in law, so I can tell her all about her grandsons.

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Everyone has a bad day. Everyone is allowed to have a bad day. But what isn’t allowed or should not be allowed, is taking out your day on your kids. And I think that there is fine line that people walk, some can recognize that moment that they need a breather and those that do not.

For the first time as a father, I saw that line, but was able to recognize in the moment, that I needed to walk away. What happened? Nothing really. I mean, I had been awake for over 18 hours, I was home with the boys alone all day due and due to the weather was not able to make it into work.  My wife was called out for work and was gone. The boys had played hard all day and we had had a great day. I had cooked and cleaned the house. But for whatever reason, Baby A was up at 1:30 am that morning, and when I went to put him down, he was fussy. He would not go sleep, even after rocking for almost an hour.  I was tired, I was hungry and I really wanted to goto bed.

As I was rocking him and asking him questions to see if there was anything wrong, he looked up and said “I love you daddy”. And in the moment right there, being awake for 18+ hours, being alone all day with the boys, being tired, being hungry and everything else, just made it all worth it.

 

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It is amazing how life can teach you lessons, at any age. Last night, I talked with a friend and she began to tell me how her husband was struggling with drinking again, work wasn’t going well, but that she had her family and children. Life, even when she was down, she focused on the positive.

Another friend reached out to me last night, upset because he and his wife were having a rough patch. But, through it all, they realized how much the other was giving and putting forth to making their relationship work, but because of struggles of life, they were not seeing what the other was doing.

My wife, who works in the medical field, was on call last night, goes on call for 48 hours this weekend, which means that I’m Mr. Mom this weekend. But, her job affords us the opportunity to have her home during the week several days during the week.

Is it hard? Sure. Is it challenging? Some days. But isn’t life? Doesn’t life present challenges that we have to face every day? But it is how we deal with life and the challenges.

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Disappointed, a word that is often used, but used in haste. I had something to happen this week and when I told my wife what happened, she immediately asked how I felt and the only word that I could think of, was disappointed.  I had been given a chance to do something really cool and that could have been a HUGE opportunity for my family and more importantly, it would have gotten me back to Texas. But, it doesn’t look like it is going the way that I wanted and for the first 24 hours, disappointed is the only word that kept coming to mind.

I spent hours while driving thinking through and replaying the conversation, over and over again. And then it hit me, maybe it is ok that I am disappointed? It shows that I really wanted the opportunity. It shows that I was passionate it about, but at the same time, maybe I was looking for more out of it than what was there.

But today, I woke up with a different view point. Though I’m still disappointed, that has changed to humbleness and gratitude. Today I am grateful that I got the call. I am honored to have been considered. Today, I wonder if the timing was right?  And more importantly, I realized that it is ok to feel disappointed in things, but it is what you can learn from that experience can teach you life lessons forever.

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Every feel like life just throws more at you can handle? Well, this has been me for the last few weeks and when people have asked how I am doing, I just simply reply with Sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t why I have used that explanation of how I have been doing, I just have.

But in life, sometimes it rains and things are just difficult to deal with. Last night my wife and I were just talking about the things that were going on, our future, etc. and I just laughed and said that I was tired of it raining for a while on us. And after I said that, I heard the rain drops hit my grill outside. Maybe that was God’s way of saying, it’s ok, I’ve got you covered? I don’t know, but it provided a few good laughs and some relief.

As I was driving into work, I tried something different, I turned off all things that made noises and I listened. I listened to the rain hit my windshield. I listened to the silence. I tuned out all the crap going on around me and listened, because even though sometimes it rains in our lives, I feel like we at least have the protection of cover. I feel that we can always look at someone else and realize that our crap, isn’t really as bad as we thought.

So as I look outside and see the rain falling, I have caught myself singing this Lyle Lovett song, enjoy.

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I would like to start this post that I am NOT a Baltimore Orioles fan. But, I would like to say, that for a few moments, I was able to smile as they did the right thing.

Baltimore County Police Officer Jason Schneider was shot in the line of duty last week and he left behind a family and more importantly, a young son.  The Baltimore Orioles stepped up this week and Officer Schneider’s son threw out the first pitch and got to spend a few moments with some of the Orioles players.  But what the Orioles really did, was give this young boy a few minutes/hours to be a kid again. They did the right thing. The Orioles allowed a young boy, that had to be grieving and confused, the chance to forget about his life and the fact that he just lost his dad.

In life, we are faced with difficulties and we are faced with struggles. But, we also have to do the right thing and I give the Orioles a lot of credit, they gave this young boy memories that will last a life time and a chance to be a kid again.

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