Our first two babies died. When something like that happens the people around you struggle to be supportive, struggle to find the right thing to say. The right thing to say might be "You really don't know the big picture like God does, maybe this is a good thing".
Yeah, I know, that's crazy, that's cruel, and nobody would (or should) say such a thing...even though sometimes it is (and in this case, was) spot on.
After five years of marriage (and a doctor telling us we would never have any kids) we got Shane. A few years later we got Mandy. The tragedy of the first two raised the value of my children by orders of magnitude. More than anyone can know.
This post isn't about that, but that is where this post starts - well, that and my last post "Don't let the door hit you".
Like the clarity I now have with regards to the hidden value of the early baby loss tragedy, today I understand the big picture wrapped around my last post.
Nobody said goodbye. Thursday I crashed the retirement lunch for my friend Bruce and Friday I realized that it was my last day and nobody but my son bothered to wish me well. I was a little sad, I wrote the post, the work day ended and like we do every Friday, we met our friends the Gilmores to go out to dinner.
And then it happened.
Following my wife, I carried my tray of food through the door and suddenly I'm surrounded by 30 or 40 of my closest friends from the last 3 decades of work. Some came from far enough away that they had to fly longer than the time they had with me that evening. All of my children, even the ones who live in a different state are there. My little grandson was there. I was so clueless and the experience was so powerful and so emotional.
Maybe the best meal of my life turned out to be the worst part of the gift.
First, everyone started lying. Mandy told the people at my party that we only had the room for 20 more minutes so they needed to leave. Bruce told me he was going to take us to another location for cake and ice cream. Cassandra's mom told me Shane and Cassandra were leaving early the next morning Tim told me we could spend the rest of the evening at my house catching up on how the years went by.
As the lies are clearing away I find the truth is beyond my wildest imagination. I find myself on a late night flight to Portland Oregon, the city where I worked my first day with EDS on the Bonneville Power Administration account. My wife managed to get me out of the house without a penny in my pocket. My children give me a stern lecture and make it clear that I am not allowed to spend any money on anything.
We visit the site of my first job with EDS. We visit the house we lived in the day Mandy was born, we even go back to the city where Michelle and I spent our honeymoon over 34 years ago. Then after a drive from Portland down the Oregon we end up here...
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