daughter Archives

September 23, 2010

It's nice to have Sarah home

My daughter Sarah, who we have not seen in almost a year, has navigated the highways and airways and airports between Fairbanks, Alaska and Salisbury, North Carolina — and is now home for a visit.

She’s presently taking a nap on our couch. It’s nice to have her home.

When I first saw her, it didn’t take but a few minutes before I said what I say almost every time I talk with her:

“Why don’t you move back here?”

I know she enjoys her life there, and the good work she does as an advocate for battered women. But is it a crime for a father to ask? It’s a long ways to Fairbanks, and we miss her.

This time, my timing was off. This afternoon, on September 24, it was 94 degrees.

“It’s too hot here,” she said.

She was sweating.

I had been out all day delivering papers, and I was pretty hot myself.

“This isn’t normal,” I said. “It’ll cool off in a few days.”

“You don’t believe in climate change?”

I told her that of course I believe in climate change (not because I know anything about it, but because I believe the scientists know what they’re talking about, and I’ve seen some of the evidence they’ve put forth).

“But this isn’t climate change,” I said. “This is weather.”

She said she flew over a lot of mountains that should have been snow covered that weren’t.

Christmas before last, she and my son, Aaron, took a trip to Israel together with the Birthright Israel program. While they were there, the Gaza War broke out and dominated the news of the day.

At one point, Sarah sent me a text message: “Aren’t you worried about us?”

“No,” I answered. “I worry about you in Fairbanks when it’s 40 below.”

This is not an exaggeration. I check the Fairbanks weather almost every day, and it’s not that unusual to see a high for the day at -20 and low of -40.

That worries me.

Thankfully, things are supposed to cool here off this weekend.

It’s great to have her home.

July 5, 2010

father-son and son-daughter: Daddy, What if

I heard a bit of this on NPR Saturday and couldn’t help but look it up and share it.

Shel Silverstein’s song, “Daddy, What If.” In this first video, Bobby Bare sings with his son, Bobby Jr. In the second, a grown-up Bobby Jr. sings with his daughter, Isabella.

December 6, 2009

Health insurance is about individual's freedom

My daughter left this morning. She’s in flight now, to her home in Fairbanks, Alaska.

We are a close family.

I thought my mother kept close tabs on me when I was her age (or slightly younger) and lived a distance away. She sometimes called me more than once a week.

Thanks to our cell phone family talk plan, unlimited text plan, Facebook, and email, our family (as do many families) stays in touch on a daily basis.

Two parents. Three children. We see pictures and videos and status updates and listen to voice messages and talk in the car.

Nevertheless, Sarah has been awfully generous about using her savings to make trips home — and we’ve learned to really appreciate the time we have with her when she visits.

Each time she leaves, it’s sad, and usually quite dramatic.

In Fairbanks, it stays below zero all winter. Here in North Carolina, in early December, it’s a little cool — but still a perfectly pleasant day for golf or tennis.

It’s also a long, expensive flight.

So of course, when she visits, the subject of her moving closer to home comes up.

She’s been there three years and has her reasons for staying there. There are relationships, people, community, meaningful work — all the things that add up to “a life.”

But there are other reasons that one could call economic, even political.

The unemployment rate here is high. In Fairbanks, there are jobs — and she has one, with a non-profit that helps protect women who are victims of domestic violence. The work is meaningful and challenging.

And it provides health insurance.

This Sunday afternoon, as C-Span airs the U.S. Senate debate on health care reform, my daughter’s ability to move closer to her family in North Carolina — were she to choose to do so — hangs in the balance.

She has a need for health care — as we all do — and she sometimes uses her benefits.

It’s doubtful she could get a job here that provides health insurance. And it’s doubtful she could make enough money to pay for her own.

Nobody realistically expects true, socialized medicine any time soon, but the public option — obviously needed and such a hot topic — would be a good start.

Then, people could move where they want, do what they want, and buy health insurance they could afford.

People could try a different kind of work if they wanted — or start a business.

Presumably, the health insurance would be actual insurance, rather than what many people have now — partial insurance, overpriced, that can be cancelled at any time for those who use it.

The arguments against socialized medicine, and the public option, are “free marketplace” arguments.

Yet, this free marketplace limits the freedom Americans have to choose work and make changes in their lives.

The free marketplace is excellent when we’re talking about products and services that are optional — that people are free to buy or not buy, shop or not shop.

But health care doesn’t fall into that category. We’re not free to choose whether or not we need it. We all need it.

Wouldn’t health care for all — paid for by all — provide more flexibility (a.k.a. freedom) to us all?

Anyway, I hope Sarah is having a good flight.

August 15, 2009February 27, 2011

Morning Coffee

Had an interesting exchange with Michael Davidson this morning on Facebook:

Sam: Barely moving so far today. Always been a slow starter.
Michael: me too.
Michael: on my third cup of coffee… the first two haven’t kicked in. hoping the third will.
Sam: My first is sitting in the kitchen. All I have to do is get up and go get it. Haven’t yet.
Michael: don’t you still have kids at home, or have they all left the nest? yell for one of them to get it.
Sam: One is still here, but 16 year old modern girls don’t appreciate such requests.
Michael: true. guess you’re on your own.

Something I didn’t mention here is that not only did my wife make that cup of coffee for me, but she reminded me, after noticing how immobile I was for quite some time — that “The coffee’s ready!”

Moments after Michael and I had this conversation, my daughter entered the room.

“Call my cellphone,” she said. “I can’t find it.”

Well, the cellphone was a couple of feet away, on the coffee table.

“There it is,” I said. “You call it.”

She tried, then gave me the phone.

“It’s not calling. You do it.”

That’s when I seized the opportunity.

“I will if you get me a cup of coffee,” I said.

“No way,” she said. “That’s not a fair trade.”

See what I mean, Michael?

(BTW, I’m proud of my daughter)

August 3, 2009April 10, 2014

My daughters’ puppies died too young

Last night, my daughter’s new puppy died from Parvo.

It’s hard to lose a pet, especially a dog. They are nothing but love.

We never knew the puppy personally. Sarah lives in Alaska. We did know how much she wanted and loved it. She visited the puppy in the shelter since it was three weeks old and finally brought it home — only to have it live two weeks.

Murphy, Sarah's puppy — Murphy, Sarah’s puppy

In those two weeks, she posted pictures on Facebook and asked her friends to suggest names. She named it Murphy. When the dog became sick, she posted updates about her feelings and about Murphy’s battle.

I’ve always been a liberal Democrat and disagree with most things Charles Krauthammer writes — but I was very moved by a column he wrote in 2003 about losing his dog. At the time, we had just lost our dog, Honey.

He talks about growing up in a city apartment with few pets, and then being introduced to the joy of dogs by his wife.

This is the concluding passage that has stayed with me: “Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it produces a vision — a creature — of the purest sweetness?”

His column is available here.

I also remember hearing an interview on NPR about how much we learn about loss — and the human condition itself — from having pets.

Our dog, Honey, died a week after her first birthday. I had just gotten my video camera and recorded the grand event, which was carefully arranged by my other daughter (see video below).

Honey spent her days at my parents’ house, with my parents’ dog, Zellie. Zellie, who is still my mother’s constant companion, was Honey’s mother. My younger daughter — whose life revolved around this dog — visited my father each day after school, while we — her parents — worked. She played cards with my dad, sometimes for hours, and then put Honey on a leash and walked the three blocks home, often stopping to discuss dog ownership with all the other dog owners in the neighborhood. When she was outside, Honey required a leash at all times, and we had several of them.

Honey’s miracle was that she was a total surprise. My parents thought Zellie had been spayed and didn’t know she was pregnant until she gave birth. My daughter had been begging for a dog for years — so she had her puppy only minutes after it was born.

At one point, when Zellie was nursing her two puppies, the proud mother found a baby possum outside and brought into the bed with her puppies.

I remarked to my father, “She can’t tell the difference between a possum and a puppy.”

“She also can’t count very well,” my father said.

She kept bringing baby possums in and I had to eventually take that possum deep into the woods and let it go.

The tragedy occurred when the guy who mowed my parents’ lawn left without closing the fence gate. Honey and her mother, Zellie, decided to leave the yard. Zellie came back home. Honey was Lhasa, part Jack Russell, and part Chiwawa — and much younger. She sprinted two blocks and got hit by a car. The person who hit her took her to the vet’s office. It was our vet, and we found her there after an afternoon of frantic searching.

We do learn about grief, whether we want to or not. Sarah, I’m sorry about your broken heart. I wish you weren’t so far away. I’m glad we have Facebook. I know, with Parvo, you have to wait before getting another dog. But when you do, I can’t wait to see the pictures.