If you’re list’ning god
Please don’t make it hard to know
If we should believe in the things that we see
Tell us, should we run away
Should we try and stay
Or would it be better just to let things be?

Living here, in this brand new world
Might be a fantasy
But it taught me to love
So it’s real, real to me

This whole situation is teaching me to love. It is teaching me to receive love. I love you, Kat.

This week felt like a return to that water slide.  My daughter was admitted to the hospital on April 1st and they took all week trying to find out what was wrong with her.  On Saturday, they finally determined what was going on and broke the news to us.  She has cancer.  I found myself free falling, unable to breathe, nothing to grab onto to slow things down.

This is so hard to hear.  It feels so surreal like everything has stopped.  There’s a detachment from reality.  It’s like I know there is another world out there, but I’m not part of it.  For instance, we came home to Charlotte briefly Friday night and I was surprised to see that my lawn needed mowing.  I thought, “Oh, grass continues to grow in this world.”

I want so much to tag this with a happy ending, but we aren’t to that part of the story yet.  Right now, I am terrified and free falling with nothing to grab onto.

For those who would like to follow her story, we have setup a page on CaringBridge.  Please visit http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katanderson.

I have told this story many times this week and many have responded with statements like,  “You just don’t see things like that anymore.”   I do not agree.  I believe that there are many decent people doing nice things for no other reason than to be gracious.  Most of us miss it most of the time.  Don’t get me wrong, Michael is one in a million (and so are the other million).  It doesn’t diminish his kindness at all.  The actual thing we don’t see much of is thanks.  We expect people to treat others with respect.  It’s the way things ought to be.  When someone is disrespectful, we feel angry and rightly so.  But the opposite does not hold true as often.  When we are treated courteously and respectfully, we ignore it or dismiss it.  We don’t say thank you enough.  That’s what’s missing.

I think there are biological roots for why we are not as thankful as we could be.  The book, On Intelligence explains from a logical standpoint how the mind works (intelligence).  In short, the authors explain each of us is constantly “predicting the future”.  We constantly receive sensory information from our eyes and ears and nose… We know what’s going on and we expect things to continue like they always have.  Driving down the road in traffic, we expect the cars to stay in their lanes going the right direction, or change lanes slowly and hopefully with a signal.  If someone darts out or passes us like a bat out of hell, we are startled because we didn’t predict that.  As I write this, the ceiling fan in moving the air about in the room.  Until I stopped to think about it I was unaware of the feeling of the air blowing my bald spot.  I was also unaware of the sound of a plane flying overhead.  My mind was used to these sensations and predicted that they would continue.  Here’s the kicker… When the predictions come true, our minds simply throw the information away.  It is not needed.

As humans, we can intentionally stop and pay attention to details that we would otherwise miss.  A fun exercise in Improv Wisdom is to close your eyes and describe the room you are in in as much detail as possible.  Then open your eyes and see what you missed or what you just got wrong.  Clearly we can override our automatic intelligence systems sometimes, but we cannot do it all the time.  It takes effort.

Back to thankfulness.  We miss the gifts that others give us.  Carl Sagan said, “In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” We are all dependent on the work and gifts from others present and past.  It would be impossible to be completely present and aware of everything that we could possibly be thankful for at any one time. But it is a wonderfully eye opening experience to stop and thank someone for what they did for us… even if it was their job.

My final act of thankfulness to Plums (until I get a chance to visit them) is a letter to the editor of the Bryan County News (click to read online).  Facebook messages are nice, but I’m willing to bet that the owners of Plums didn’t go into business to get nice compliments.  They surely did it as a financial investment.  My sincere hope is that one day soon, they are able look at their financial statements and say, “On June 19th, when we were nice to Jim Anderson’s daughter, everything changed for the better.”

Thank you.

P.S.  I just realized today that the letter to the editor will not remain online forever, so I have captured it here…

Bryan County News (Wednesday, June 23, 2010)

Dear Editor: My daughter’s car broke down at exit 87 on her way to Charlotte, N.C. from Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.

I drove the 5 hours from Charlotte to get her and was worried about where she could wait for me. Plums Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop was where she chose to wait. Michael, the manager, was so very helpful and friendly to her. He even let her stay there after closing time until I could get there!

Since we returned home, my friends have been filling their business’ Facebook page with thanks. As satisfying as that has been, none of us live near Richmond Hill.

The Richmond Hill community needs to know what a jewel they have in Michael at Plums. He went above and beyond.

If Michael had been rude or worse, I would have taken the opportunity to blast the restaurant and the people of Richmond Hill. I want to be just as intentional about shining a light on our positive experience. Would you help me go overboard with lavishing thanks on Michael at Plums?

This was my personal blog entry asking my friends to help… http://jimazing.com/blog/2010/06/a-plum-day/

Thank you,

Jim Anderson

P. S.  The memberships at Plums are growing.  Their wall is covered with messages of thanks for taking care of our Danae!  I am so thankful for friends partnering with me to bless someone they never met.  If you don’t know what this is about, here’s the explanation… http://jimazing.com/blog/2010/06/a-plum-day/

This morning after mowing the lawn, I was fixing or breaking my edger (depending on whether you consider my intentions or the results) when my phone rang.  Danae was driving to Charlotte from Orlando, FL after a week of Music Therapy training.  When she got to Savannah, GA (well… almost) she stopped for a bite to eat.  When she exited I-95 the engine cut off and wouldn’t restart.  Google and I helped her find a place that would look at it today. She was towed in and the news was not hopeful.  It looks like the timing belt broke, which could be very expensive to fix.

I drove from Charlotte to get her and bring her to our house where her baby girl and dogs were waiting… in fact we are on the road as I type this (Danae is driving). I was very concerned about where she would be for the 4.5 hours it would take me to drive to her.

When the repair shop closed, she walked down the street to a little sandwich shop and made herself at home.  She didn’t know what to expect.  It was, after all, a local place hidden in the back of a little shopping center.  What she found was a gracious store manager named Michael who treated her like royalty all afternoon.

On my way down, I-26 (or as Danae says, “I-twenty-sux) was a parking lot.  I took a longer route around the traffic, which was faster than sitting in it, but slower than I anticipated.  It was clear that I was not going to make it before the restaurant closed at 7:00.

Michael told her not to worry.  Even if he had to close the restaurant for the evening, he would let Danae stay there until I arrived. When I got there around 7:20, Danae was safe and sound and full of terrific stories from her adventure at Plums Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop. Michael was a wonderful host who gave my daughter a safe and pleasant experience in the midst of a pretty horrible day.

I have three little requests for you to consider…

First: I would like to overwhelm Plums Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop with Facebook Fans.  If you are thankful and/or impressed with what they did for Danae, would you go to their page (click here) and click the button to join them?  They had 92 members before me.  Wouldn’t it be cool for their kindness to be the start of a wave of positive attention and new customers for them?  Let’s do it!

Second: Would you share this story with your friends and ask them to become a fan of Plums?

Lastly: If you find yourself traveling south of Savannah in the area called Richmond Hill, please get off I-95 at exit 87, head East on Hwy 17 for a little over a mile.  They are hidden in the shopping center right behind the Verizon store on your right.  Stop in for a sandwich or the best blueberry cheesecake ice cream you ever had.  Tell Michael, “Thanks for watching over Danae and making her day a Plum day.”

See also A Plum Ending

Molly in Charlotte

New words, laughter and smiles

Grandparents smiling

When we want help, we want the listener to listen for understanding.  We want solutions.  However, when we want to vent, solutions is exactly what we do not want.  We want to be listened to just for understanding.  It’s a subtle difference, but it is the difference between the speaker getting what they want or not.  If the speaker owns the topic and doesn’t get what they want, the whole experience is frustrating and irritating.  When it works though, it is magical.  There is nothing quite like the feeling you get when someone focuses on you and truly listens for understanding.

Listening is expensive because it is hard work (hard emotional work) and because it is rare. One last thought.  If you want me to listen for understanding, do what Jeanie did.  Tell me what you want and, who knows, you might just get it.

Thanks Sweetie.  It is an honor to hear your heart.

As much as I chafe over doing something because I “have to”, I must admit that I do like it… especially creating the collage.  The process of going through photos and remembering all that we have done over the last 12 months is cathartic.  It is easy for someone like me to forget and begin to think that my life does not matter.  Remembering and reflecting becomes more important to me all the time… or maybe it is just my awareness of its importance.

I hope you will take a few moments to read the 2009 Anderson Family News and take a look at the 2009 Collage.  You can always view collages and news pages from previous years by clicking the Family News menu on the jimazing.com web site

I knew I was going to love being a grandpa, but I didn’t know why.  It’s hard to explain, but kinda like this…

• First I grew up.  I wasn’t really aware of what was going on because it was the first time I’d ever grown up.
• Next, I had kids of my own and I got to grow up again.  While I observed the things they were going through, I remembered similar experiences I had.  I wasn’t really trying to live my life through them, but it sorta happened that way when their stuff reminded me of my stuff.
• Now as the grandpa, I get to do it again.  Only this time I am not primarily responsible for this one.  When I am with her I can just love up on her and study her.  I love watching  her learn.

The interesting thing is that I change each time I go through this process.  I think it is interesting how as parents we tended to worry about how our actions would affect our children.  What we missed in the process is how they were changing us.  I’m not the same person I was when any of my children were a year old.  Molly is already working her magic on me.  Giving me a whole new outlook on life.

Last time I was with her was Thanksgiving weekend.  Over and over, I went through the routine of placing my hand on my chest and saying, “Pops”.  Then I put my hand on her chest and said, “Molly”.  After a few times, she put her hand on my chest and a couple of times she actually said, “Pops!”  Danae said that she had to mop me up off the floor when I melted.

Here are some recent photos for fans:

2009-11-30 Thanksgiving

We called the doctor to tell them she was in labor and I went to my meeting.  Afterwards, I picked up Jeanie and we headed to the doctor’s office.  They were beside themselves with worry by the time we arrived causing us to wonder if they’d ever done this before <just kidding>…<sort of>.  By the time we had gotten to the hospital we found out that Jeanie’s dad, Vic, had canceled the classes he was teaching, come to the hospital, waited and left!  Everyone was in a panic except Jeanie, Jim and (soon to be) Erin.  Needless to say, Erin was born later.

She was a dissatisfied little girl.  She wanted to do what her sisters were doing and was not happy to be younger and less able.  Maybe that drive helped her to achieve so much.  I remember watching her play with wooden blocks and legos.  She would make bridges and it seemed to me that she had an innate understanding of what it took to make them strong.  Maybe it’s just because I was her dad, but I was impressed.

When she was about the age she was in the photo above, Erin loved to hang out around me in the morning to watch me shave.  I would scoop off a dab of shaving cream and put it on her cheek, which pleased her to no end!  She’d run off through the house squealing with delight.  I do miss those little slices of life.

She shares my love of astronomy.  When she was in high school, she did a project with the head of the Physics dept at the College of Charleston.  If I remember correctly, her project was to map the moons of Jupiter.  It required the use of my telescope, which is rather cumbersome to move around.  Since I was commuting from Charleston to Charlotte to work that year, I wasn’t around during the week to help her set it up.  I wanted so much to be around to help her with it, but I taught her how to setup the telescope and she did it all by herself.  I guess that’s the part of letting go that’s hard for a dad… but it’s good.  She and Justin just returned from a vacation in Hawaii where they got to see the big telescopes.  When she told me how cool it was, I was so jealous.

One night when she was 16 years old, she asked me to tuck her into bed and tell her a story.  I guess she was feeling nostalgic for when she was little.  No matter what the reason, I was happy to relive some of those fun memories of the tucking in ritual.  That night, I made up a bedtime story on the spot, just like the old days.  The next night she repeated the same request, “tell me a story and tuck me in.”  This continued for a week or more until one fateful night.  As much as I loved the attention and getting special time with her, I asked if I could just read something since I just didn’t have the energy to make up a story.  She agreed.

I looked on her bookshelf and saw The Hobbit.  I asked her if she had ever read it.  She hadn’t.  So we started reading it.  We continued every night until we finished it weeks later.  At the end of The Hobbit, we continued with the Lord of the Rings.  We were almost done with the first of the three books when Peter Jackson announced his epic project to bring the Lord of the Rings to the big screen.  Needless to say, we were beside ourselves.

In her senior year of high school, she won an award for playing the part of Gollum in the school theater department’s production of The Hobbit.  (The photo is of her with her award beside herself in costume).  She looked really creepy.  When the Lord of the Rings movies came out, the two of us went in costume! (Hers was way cooler than mine).

Erin has always had a sensitive heart.  I can remember once when Erin was a teenager, I was in a bad mood and snapped at Jeanie.  Erin said in a matter-of-fact way that what I said was mean.  I immediately knew that she had nailed me, but she made it easy for me to acknowledge what I did because she was so respectful in the way she said it.  Now that she’s in grad school at Berkeley, she focuses a lot of her energy into getting girls interested in science.  She’s passionate about bringing a better representation from the “other half” of the population into the scientific community.  I think that is so cool.

Erin, you are so easy to love.  I am so very glad that I get to be your dad.  Have a very happy birthday.  I love you.

P. S. This is a video Erin made recently with her new ukulele from Hawaii.  Be sure and watch until the end… it’s special.

http://jimazing.com