Christmas Letter 2004

Friends and Family, The world of little girls moves fast. If you're not paying attention, a whole year will go by. The next thing you know, you'll be writing another Christmas letter. The cycle of life doesn't seem to me like the kind ofthing that runs in a circle from January to December. It's just that you had better take some time to write some of it down. Otherwise you'll miss it entirely. So, that's what I have been doing. Writing it down. I don't get around to it as often as I like, but when I have something I'd like to tell the girls, something that they aren't old enough to understand, I write it down. I publish the letters online as "Letters to 2 Girls”. When you have some time, give it a read. You'll find it at http://lettersto2girls.blogspot.com.

Jenna is busy running around in her play dress-up clothes and giggling. In between the giggling she tests our patience to the limits. But all in all she's a happy little 3 year old. It is so fun to watch her and her jolly tummy all dressed up in her ballerina outfit as she goes to ballet practice. She is getting ready to be an Angel in the Christmas pageant at church. She can't wait, and neither can I. She's such a little performer. She'll stand up on stage and sing while swaying back and forth.

Megan, our 4 1/2 year old, is in pre-K. The move to our new school district last year has paid off. This is the school we wanted our kids to attend. She really likes it and she has many new friends. She has playtime at some of their houses or brings a friend home. Megan is a focused little girl. She loves art. She's always the last one finished in her class with artwork. Both of the girls are as smart as their mother, which bodes well if they want to be astrophysicists or Nobel Prize winners or something. They play well together, especially when I set up the camping tent in their playroom. When mom has gone running on Saturday mornings, we go into the tent on a camping trip and have pancakes. Shhhh!! Don't tell Jamise, we're not supposed to eat outside of the kitchen.

The house looks far less like a doublewide trailer than it did at this time last year. For the most part, it looks like a real home. While there's a long way to go on the remodeling, we are happy to be this far along. Fatherhood is full of rewards. The feeling you get when one of your little girls wants to be held, and then squeezes your neck, pulling your face tight to hers, is irreplaceable. Reading them books at night and having them call you back into the room for one more hug or kiss. We still enjoy our midtown Atlanta church and the circle of friends that surrounds us there. We try not to miss Sunday school and are involved in a monthly church supper club.

Jamise ran another half marathon this year on Thanksgiving morning. The race finished up at Turner field so I took the girls down there. It was freezing outside but the girls loved to see all the people in the 'run-run race'. Jamise is still at the bank and now works 4 days per week instead of 3. She is off at 2pm so she is able to go and pick up the girls and spend the rest of the day with them.

When I come home from work, she always has the house spotless and there is always a piping-hot nine-course meal on the table. It's a lot like 'Father Knows Best', in the 1950's. Only, there's a lot more screaming little girls running around.

I am with the same software company. There are a lot of ups and downs for us but I still enjoy my work. I am able to go in a little late in the mornings which gives me time to take Megan to school and then spend some time with Jenna. Three or four times each hunting season I get out and take a short day or two trip. I haven't "caught” anything this year, but I sure scared a deer and a duck one weekend. Maybe I'm just a bad shot. Maybe my gun is bent? My hunting partner Erik felt bad for me so he sent me home with some venison from his freezer. How pitiful.

I still think an awful lot about my dad. I know how much he would enjoy seeing his 6 granddaughters and 1 grandson (my sister's newest!). He would have carved the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner and been there on Christmas day, wearing one of his Santa sweaters, building a fire, and putting on the Christmas music. The grandkids would have made their Poppy some artwork, just like we used to do, and he would have treasured it more than any store-bought gift. I would have sat down with him and talked about when we were kids. I would have shown him all the work I've done on the house. And he would have been proud of me. Of course, the cycle of life continues. It doesn't run from January to December. It does, however, run in a way that circles us back to remember family and friends at this time of year, during the celebration of Christ's birth. Now we pass on our traditions to our kids, and they will grow up and do the same. The cycle continues. From our family to yours, have a merry Christmas. Nate, Jamise, Megan, Jenna, Belle, the not-so-young-anymore-but-still-here dog, and…. Snoopy-Bunny, a whole host of baby dolls like baby-Thomas, baby-Ashley (pronounced 'Ash-a-lee'), baby-Gracie, baby-Claire, Jackfer, the pretend kitty….

That Last Little Hex Head Screw

Put a little perspective back in your life. A father writes to his daughters about a defining moment in his life when God was there.

Way back before either of you were born, around 1998, your mom and I bought our first “together house.” I had owned a house before we got married,but that house wasn’t really your Mom’s house. So, eventually we came into town and picked out a ramshackle, tarbeaten, rat-nested, shack-thingey we called a house. Well, ok, it wasn’t that bad, but it was in pretty bad shape. It’s a good thing it was in bad shape too, because houses inside the perimeter of Atlanta had skyrocketed in value and we couldn’t have afforded it otherwise.

The previous owners had bought the house when it was new 35 years before. They raised their two little girls into young women there. Unfortunately, the father had passed away 18 years prior to us purchasing the house. Both he and his wife were chain smokers as evidenced by the 40-50 old cigar boxes being used to store nuts and bolts in the basement (and as evidenced by the soot that covered virtually every square inch of the walls and ceilings inside the house). There were stark outlines of pictures that hung on the walls, which revealed the true paint color. It was as if someone had spray painted the walls with smoke, but the hanging pictures protected the walls underneath. We literally had to take a floor mop and wash down the walls to remove all the tar and nicotine before we could prime, then paint (4 coats, no kidding).

So, needless to say, we had our work cut out for us. Your mother was a trooper. She is such a good designer and has such amazing vision. Somehow she could look through the dirt and darkness, and see the light inside that house. She could see light in the hallway with the two of you running up and down before you were ever there. She could hear the light of your giggling in the back bedroom that she decorated long before we even knew your names. And, she could see the light in a vision of herself in front of the mirror of the main bathroom brushing your silky hair before we ever knew what your faces looked like.

One of the projects, that probably didn’t get underway until about a year after we had moved in, was to rebuild and update the sunroom. The house had a sunroom built onto it a few years after the house was constructed. It was a true 1960’s looking sunroom. Most every square inch of the walls were old-style aluminum ‘hurricane windows’ which are the kind that crank outwards from the bottom. If a bad rainstorm comes along, they keep the room quite dry even if the windows are open. But the windows were single paned, and very drafty. We couldn’t control the temperature in the room because of the inefficiency of the windows. We priced out contractors who were going to do the remodeling, but, in sticker shock, I convinced your Mom that I could do it, from start to finish. (I’ll omit the part here where I should tell you that to me ‘finished’ means 85% finished. Then you wait a few months and move it to 96% finished, and that’s just about done. Boy your Mom hates that!)

The only part of the structure we were going to save was the roof, and the brick knee-wall around the base. So, I disassembled and removed all the windows and moved the aluminum support posts around a little so I could frame in the window openings and make room for modern glass. One obstacle in my way was the old, window-mounted air conditioner that was perched on an aluminum cross beam. The thing was tightly screwed into place. It looked like an original. A real museum piece. I worked my way around it, unscrewing each little hex head screw so I could remove it. There were quite a few of those screws attaching the unit to the aluminum cross beam. I thought I had removed all them, but when I went to pick up the air conditioner, the unit wouldn’t move. It wouldn’t budge. I knew it had to weigh a ton, but it should be somewhat easy to pick up and move out of this window area. If I could just get all the screws out. I finally found one lone screw hidden in the back. It wasn’t accessible from inside the sunroom. It was just out of reach, tucked all the way around, underneath the lip, and completely out of sight. Like the last of the Mohicans or something. The last of its kind. That screw was hiding and holding on for dear life. I didn’t realize it was holding on for my dear life. I went outside and got up on a small ladder so I could remove the screw…

After the accident happened, I never saw that screw again. I can see it clearly in my mind though. Thinking back on it. It would have been something to save. Just an ordinary hex head screw. But one that defined an extra-ordinary moment. A keepsake that really no one else would understand. But I would understand. That screw is a metaphor of the fragility of life. That screw was a wake up call. That screw is all that stood in the way of the 80 lb air conditioner, and my head. You see, I didn’t realize that the bulk of the weight of that air conditioner was concentrated in the back of the unit. I guess the air compressor is back there. The last screw was holding all that weight. And what looked like a perfectly centered and balanced air conditioner, turned into death on a ladder for me. I died on that ladder that day. Right out there in the backyard. In the sunshine. In the heat of the summer. My life with your mother, over. My life with my parents and siblings, over. My life with my friends, over. My life with God, just beginning. Only God wasn’t through with me that sunny day. He decided to show me how easy it would be for Him to take me. He decided to show me how easy it would be for Him to leave me here. He decided to show me a defining moment in my life. And, he decided that I was to later be your father.

When I climbed the six feet up the ladder and unscrewed that last screw, 100% of the weight of the air conditioner careened backwards against me. I was thrown off the ladder. The air conditioner must have hung up on the top of the ladder for a second, because I had time to hit the ground before the air conditioner hit me in the head. Right in the head. Right in the head with all its’ weight.

Everything went black for just a second. As though the impact shocked loose the connection between my eyes and my brain. I didn’t black out. I didn’t break my neck. I didn’t suffer a concussion. My head didn’t split wide open. And, I didn’t die. The unit fell six feet to me on the ground and smashed into the back of my head and scraped across my back on the way down, creating a long cut. The cut barely bled. It was more like an impact cut, instead of something deep that would require sutchers. The cut turned into a scar that I can still see. It is feint, but it is a stark reminder for me.

I shouldn’t be alive right now. I shouldn’t be sitting here writing this letter. You don’t just have an air conditioner smash into your head and live to talk about it. Unless, that is, that it is what God wanted. I mean, think about it, how many people have ever been hit by a flying air conditioner?

Girls, if you are reading this and wondering, “what in the world is Dad trying to tell us,” well maybe it is this: in life you are going to make a lot of choices. Some of your choices will be good, and some will be bad. Very bad. But make no mistake about this one: If you choose not to believe in God, you will be making the biggest mistake of your lives. He is real. He is there. He loves you. He is listening, and you have no choice in the matter.

This is not an illustration showing you a time in my life when I made a bad choice. I don’t think my decision that hot summer day to climb up that ladder to remove that air conditioner was actually all that bad. It is instead a story told to convey to you, that no matter what you do, or don’t do, with, and in, your lives, no matter what you believe and don’t believe, God is there. You have no choice in the matter. He is just there. You can love him, ignore him, serve him, hate him, worship him, or curse him forever. No matter. Because He is there. Just like a parent’s love for their child is there. In the best moments when you show us love, and in the worst moments when you have done all the wrong in the world. Our love for you is there, no matter what. You have no choice in the matter.

That accident was a pivotal moment in my life. Take note of the pivotal moments in your lives. The defining moments. Whether they be good or bad. Our defining moments don’t have to define us forever. They only shape the you that you are to become. All of us are defined by the events in our lives. We are a representation of the sum total of each defining moment. They are translated into our minds, into our hearts, into our lives, into our loves, and…. into our children. May the defining moments in your lives be looked back on as the greatest joys, the greatest triumphs, and the greatest loves.

'Your Dad

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