September 30, 2008

• The man that I will become.

   

  They say that when you get older that you will become like your parents, that sons will turn into their fathers and daughters their mothers.  If what they say is true, then I’m looking at the man I will become.

   

  It is one thing to think that you can see into the mind of your father.  It is another to actually look at his brain.  Having moved back to Hawaii, The Wife™ and I are staying in my old room at my mom’s house while we look for a place of our own and scattered amongst my old possessions are things that belonged to my father, a cruel reminder that we will not outlive our material possessions.  (Fitting, is it not, that as I grow closer to being the man my father was as I age that my father spent the last few months of his life living in my room?  He was too weak to go up and down the stairs at that point.) 

   

  I combed through his things, discarding the old and meaningless, but saving things graced with his touch like his signature or handwriting, if only to prove to my future children that God really does provide angels unaware to walk among us.  When I came to some medical records my first thought was to place them in the shred pile, but then I realized that they were his.  My father, it seems, requested copies of all of his imaging studies and here I am, looking at the CT scan used to rule out metastatic cancer to his head and neck.  The scan was negative, but it seemed surreal to be looking at pictures of his brain, straddling the line between doctor and son.  I chuckled slightly as I thought wistfully about the irony of being able to look inside his brain and still not know what he was thinking at the time.

   

  They say that the eyes are the window to the soul.  I would add that your memories are the reservoir from which you draw upon to create the essence of who you are.  Your memories are what fashioned the personality you have today and are the basis from which you formed your hopes for tomorrow.  I have always felt that losing your memory is worse than suffering a stroke or heart attack, because though you can lose function or dignity with the latter two, you lose who you are with the first.  Be careful of what memories you choose to endear yourselves with, because if you hold on to the ones filled with anger, jealousy and hate, those are exactly what you will become.

   

  So what memories am I looking at, I thought, as I looked up and down the scans.  Did you hold on to the happy ones and let the sorrowful go?  Or did you use the sorrowful to strengthen the meaningfulness of the happy ones?  Was I a good enough son?  Or was simply being your son good enough for you?

   

  They say that when you get older that you will become like your parents, that sons will turn into their fathers and daughters their mothers.  I find that as I get older I am repeating my father’s nuggets of wisdom to those around me more often.  Be more generous!  Don’t put banana in the pork egg rolls!  I also find myself with the same responsibilities—a wife I have pledged to care for, serving the patients in my community, maintaining a household and making sure that my mother/his wife is always without want or need.  Even the creation of my franksabunchisms are rooted in a desire to dispense wisdom like prescription medicine, the same way my father did. 

   

  I searched the scans, seeking something that would tell me how to grow into the man I am supposed to become.  The Wife™ interrupted me then, asking me what I was looking at, and at that moment I found my answer while I watched her packing up my father’s memories while unpacking new ones we brought with us from California.  My father became the man that he was because he chose to love those around him.  He chose to forgive those around him.  The memories from those experiences became the man that he was and the man that he was became the memories that exist today.  (I cannot go to any hospital without someone telling me how nice my father was and how they miss him.) 

   

  I looked at her and made the decision that I will live a life choosing to love and forgive those around me.  And by doing that those memories of love and forgiveness will be formed and create the man that I will become.

   

  They say that when you get older that you will become like your parents, that sons will turn into their fathers and daughters their mothers.  And if that is the man that I will become, I would not have it any other way. 

   

  Except I’m tempted to try the banana in the pork egg rolls thing…just once.

   

  Have a great week!

  ———–

  Could someone explain to me the significance of points in housing loans?  For example, the loan is a fixed rate, 5.5% with 2 points.  What do the 2 points mean?  (Sorry, I’m an idiot in all matters outside of the hospital.) Edit: Thanks!  I feel guilty about possibly getting a better deal out of this mess when I buy a place (hopefully) soon.

  • 12:20 pm
  • 52 Comments