"And when October goes…"

October, just ended, is quite a month for this family, in particular for three of us (your off-the-radar Aging Child being one of these). I don't want to hog the blog – although, heh, it is mine – but let me lay it out a bit for my occasional reader or two, starting with me and winding back down to yours truly.

The month starts out (near enough) with my birthday, or not long after it, which is why I've done my best to drop out of sight from late September to early October: I honestly don't like the fuss made over me, and have come to most prefer spending that span in a monastery – really! – in prayer, meditation, self-examination, and sampling the monastic life. It's the best of ways for me to start out a new year of life.

Of course, the last couple years – this and last year – poor Spartacus has had to tolerate my loud and mystical company, given his secure homestead's day-drive proximity to a particular shrine I'd wanted to visit. But I think he's been a bit miffed at my divulging some of his blockhouse's hi-tech security measures; so he and wife and kids (and probably dogs and rabid cat as well) have – since my most recent visit – taken up practicing with a longbow and throwing-axes… I kid not! (Details and photos some other time.) He and Mrs. Sparta already have crusher-handshakes (I assume all their kids do, too), so I expect the shafts and hafts are all flying some serious distances. Neighbors, be warned! And, since these are low-tech, I can't trigger them with pinecones… which means my next visit there will see me either heavily padded and armored, or driving a second-hand M-1.

But back to the significance of October to my own family. About three weeks after my birthday, there falls my dad's birthday… which he missed this year for the fourth October in a row, owing to the still-sad date now forever falling between his birthday and mine. We laid him to rest most of a week later, the day before his birthday. This date also held a particularly different anniversary for me: eighteen years before that, my wife and I separated, later to divorce.

Moreso: at the same time and on the same day as Dad's funeral, my father-in-law's funeral was also being held. I urged of Shellie (my and Beej's daughter) that she attend that one… being the favorite (and eldest) grandchild on both sides, this double-blow to her heart was more than she could easily bear, so I spared her having to choose which grandfather's funeral to miss. I don’t regret in the least having had her be there by her mom's side, rather than my own.

Beej needed this badly; when I brought Shellie up to her and spoke briefly with her just a couple days after Norman's passing – while I was still very much reeling from the loss of my own dad – Beej, still quite attractive, looked understandably awful: face very pale, eyes utterly haunted like those of a soldier still trapped on the battlefield. Incredibly, amid whatever turmoil was still roaring through her, Beej somehow was able to offer me her sincerest condolences on the passing of my father. I was deeply touched by this kind gesture, and nearly brought to tears over it.

Norman was a man impossible to close any door on. He was everything my father was not: strong, quiet, self-effacing, very skilled around the house and with tools, loving, protective and defensive of his wife and children and grandchildren (well, my dad did love his grandchildren, too), firm where firm was needed, and gentle and yielding where that, too, was called for.

Picture Abraham Lincoln half a foot shorter; shave off his beard, soften his face, toss away the stovepipe hat, and you've got Norm, close enough.

He gave me his only daughter, the apple of his eye (who in turn gave me a lovely daughter of my own). And he remained close and a friend even after Beej and I separated and divorced. He did not hesitate once to come down to my own home and read me the riot act (with both barrels, and at full volume) when I was being a real jerk about some of the last few divorce issues. And he also once came into my home to give me a hug and tell me he loved me. I have no clear memory of my own father doing that.

Norm, I wish I could have been at your funeral that day (I did make it to his wife's just a couple years afterward) – the only thing that could keep me away, did keep me away: having to bury my own father. I’m very glad and proud that my daughter (the second apple of your eye) was there to tell you goodbye from both of us.

And whenever I leave flowers at my dad's grave – as I did a couple weeks ago – I swing out across a couple county lines and leave some for Norm (and Nan) as well. My dad gave me life; Norm, through his daughter and his own impossible-to-follow example as a father, made my life worth living. Thank you for everything.

Now, let's dab our eyes a moment, and turn October around again. Norman was able to accept my being less than perfect. While no utter blockhead, I certainly did not get my family's greatest share of looks or/and brains. Without a doubt, the wisest person in our family – smartest, loveliest, and most with-it – has got to be baby-sister Alicia (our brother Doc's Ivy-League PhD notwithstanding). Two years ago, she wed her husband Levi in what truly was a fairy-tale wedding. This was in Cambridge (MA, not UK), and somehow they brilliantly managed to reserve Harvard's Fogg Art Museum for their reception… complete with klezmer band (Dad would've loved it!), hora, everything! (I almost got to dance with the lovely – fortunately married – clarinet-player!)

In a bit of stunning inspiration (this is beautifully typical of the two of them), they held this lovely ceremony in October (2005)! The more-recent hole left in our collective hearts by our dad's October-passing was so beautifully mitigated and brought a long way toward healing by Alicia and Levi's wonderful choice of months in which to marry, whatever other factors may have weighed into that choice.

And now it is my delightful honor to announce to the world (the rest of the family already knows: we just confide in other-sister Mew, and it spreads like wildfire in San Jose) that Alicia gave birth late this afternoon to our latest family member, only the second boy of now-seven grandchildren of our parents. With October just now behind her, she and Levi and son yet-to-be-named have graced a whole new month at its outset; previously November was family-famed for being the exclusive territory of older-brother Sarge, it being his birth-month.

Lovely!

What a gorgeous time of year. Let's hear it for October… and now November First!