Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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MIND EQUALS BLOWN!!

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The day that spelling hurt my head.

I have dyslexia and I have discovered a thing called “auto-correct” or another form is “spell check” BUT, what is Dyslexia? Is it stupidity? Is it a learning disability? Or is it just the way things are? Like a hair color? or personality traits?

The MAYO defined it as:

“Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding). Also called a reading disability, dyslexia is a result of individual differences in areas of the brain that process language.

Dyslexia is not due to problems with intelligence, hearing or vision. Most children with dyslexia can succeed in school with tutoring or a specialized education program. Emotional support also plays an important role.

Though there’s no cure for dyslexia, early assessment and intervention result in the best outcome. Sometimes dyslexia goes undiagnosed for years and isn’t recognized until adulthood, but it’s never too late to seek help.”

CURE!??!!! I DONT WANT A CURE! I SAY HOGWASH! Dyslexia is a much-needed form of information processing for my talents, if you took it away from me, I would be crushed!!! Sure, it makes things harder in academia, but let’s be honest, school is a very short time in life (unless you become a teacher I guess). I attended school until I could “drop out” in my sophomore year of high school, how stupid? Well, let me tell you a secret… In the Eighth grade I earned a 2 year all-expense paid ride at the UofM but never used it. For me school was terribly slow repetition and mundane. My IQ was measured many years ago and it was actually very high. (stating facts, to prove my point, not bragging) SO WHY DID I DROP OUT?

I made the decision to drop out after 10th grade geometry, I was so excited to start this wonderful world of shapes and magic. Instead, I was forced into a chair, and we started reviewing basic math. For a few weeks I tried really hard to sit in the class and learn but all we did was basic math skills… AND I MEAN BASIC! I was so disappointed and discouraged that I just gave up, I dropped out of school and started experimenting with what destroyed my life for many years to come. That is the topic of future blogs.

I have been doing my own research on dyslexia and have found some breakthrough information that has helped me learn how to better function in my very unique world and how I see things. Dyslexia can better be described using a threefold approach. I will try to explain this complex pattern of thoughts in a simple and short manner. I know I will misrepresent this information as some folks understand it and may leave out other information that, yet others may understand better. My point is not to perfectly explain the Dyslexic person in every situation but rather to represent my challenges in my own experiences.

When I say the sentence “The sky is blue” we can see basically three distinct ways to process that sentence. The first is to look at the words and think of the words as they make up the sentence (word thinking). The second, and probably the most common way, is to visualize the “blue sky” (picture thinking). BUT the dyslexic person may see both words and pictures with an enhancement… 3D thinking. Thinking. Seeing the words and the picture but in a 3-dimensional way. Seeing the words from front, back, top and bottom. This is why I can never seem to master spelling. I see words and letters from all sides as if they are objects as well as words. But wait, there is more: I see the picture of a blue sky from three dimensions as well.

MIND EQUALS BLOWN!

So, for me it is like seeing every sentence, word, idea, thought and concept as a three-dimensional computer-generated display. Think of the “Iron Man” computer, it displays a three-dimensional interactive interface that can be spun, twisted, expanded and changed… So, I can see what I want to make, do or feel but I can’t explain it in common language. 

Mayo got it all wrong! Dyslexia is not a deficiency and certainly not a disability, it’s an enhancement. And gives me the ability to create things in my head and troubleshoot things that some are unable to even understand. Does this make me superhuman? Better? Superior? Well, no but it does make me better at what I do. And to be frank, I love my disab-yslexia. And so does Jessica, because she is a word thinker and together, we are perfect, apart we fall short. I thank the Lord for my disability.

I pray you feel our Lord has richly bless you this beautiful day, Living Hazzardously.

Dear Mr Cellophane, Please refrain, Mr Cellophane.

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Dear Mr Cellophane, Please refrain, Mr Cellophane.

Her scream pierced the night as if it were a tornado siren!  Shattering the silent calm with shrieks of terror. The puppeteer, now in full control, reaping, claiming & taking over her very will, leaving nothing untouched. Like a tornado when it hits a small town. TERROR ON EVERY SIDE. Quick! Everyone hide! Head to the basement! Under the stairs! Into a closet! Into safety…  But today, there is no place to hide, no safe place to be. As if we sat in a vast open field. We sat on the edge of our bed, so horribly unprotected, the “siren” wails, we can’t run, we can’t hide, we can only sit here as the storm devours us. It swallows our life in one large gulp, one devastating statement, “He didn’t make it”. That scream was only one word, yet it said all there was to say. That word will forever haunt my memories…. “WHAT”.  

I watched a woman cry out in pain on tv after she had the truth revealed to her in real time about her beloved child and I too cried. I was there when my father died and I watched my mother cry out in pain when my sister died in a tragic crash. I was with my mother the day she passed away. I sang at the funeral of my niece who was murdered. Death is real and it is inevitable! So why do we react the way we do? Everyone is going to “Kick the bucket”. Is it a surprise?

When death enters the life of a friend or relative, how should we react? Should we offer long statements of how we know what you are going through? Perhaps we should simply connect at the beginning with hugs and attention and slowly drift back to a settled life we had before this event? Maybe we should just do our best to ignore It and not even acknowledge the situation? What is the best way to react? What is the proper way to connect? Is there a wrong way? I personally think this is a much more complicated question and it depends greatly on the relationship.

When my step son Sam passed away that August night, I started on a journey that was “unfamiliar” to me. I had previously experienced plenty of death in my life, I knew the attention I should expect. The responses people give in different situations can vary more than the East is from the West… BUT I did not expect this : “Dear Mr Cellophane, Please refrain, Mr Cellophane”. I experienced a form of disconnect or perhaps a better description is invisibleness in the months that followed. It was as if the expectation others  had were more like I had lost a distant third cousin that I only met once about 20 years ago. This not only surprised me, it made me feel like my relationship with Sam was insignificant and meant little to nothing. I could only assume this was simply because I am his “step father”. 

In the months to come I heard statements like “Ohh this must be so hard on Jess and Al, do you know how his father is doing?” or “Wow, this must be so hard, How is Jess handling this?” or maybe “I remember when(insert a favorite memory) happened, Does Jess need anything? You know we are always here to help, whatever Jess and Al need, just let us know!” I started to feel invisible and I started to feel like I didn’t experience the death of a child, now granted, he was not my blood child, and I don’t want to downplay that role. I am also adopted into a family, the family of God and God thinks of me no less than his “blood” child. 

It wasn’t until months, well actually about a year later that I found a man who also was ‘Mr Cellophane”, he too was the step father to a child that ran ahead into heaven… and he actually knew what I felt. For the first time since Sam passed away, I understood I was not crazy in this area and the feelings I felt were very similar to his… he had raised this boy of his from a very early age… he too was invisible.

I am not looking for “pity” and I certainly don’t want attention but I did find it was hard and for a brief moment in time I think I can understand a bit of how God may feel. When God is not given the credit due him for being our Father. Ohh I know, it’s different, I’m not saying I am God or that I know what it’s like.. But it got me thinking… Do I give God the attention he deserves for stepping into my life and being my step father? Do I recognize the commitment and dedication he has given freely to me? How about you? Do you need to take a second and credit God what is due to God for being your GOOD STEP DAD? 

May God bring you peace today

Livinghazzardously for God.

Dark places, triggers and time

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“YOU G$&@$? KIDS ARE THE WORST $@!:;)$&@ THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME”

This statement was one of my fathers favorites. Colorful expletives, horrible names and physical beatings were a daily occurrence for my siblings and I growing up.

My first traumatic memory was in the big house in South Minneapolis, I’m not sure what year it was, we moved in my kindergarten year, so it was before that. I had done some “horrible deed” that my father determined was nearly a capital offense. The punishment was banishment.

The big house was a duplex with “druggies” upstairs. I got the bed in the bay window, basically a foam pad shoved into a window opening. I don’t remember much of that house now. Between my fathers cigarette smoke and the constant inflow of marijuana smoke from upstairs, I was either being made strong or it was a sure thing what my future held.

This is where I started in the “Jonny jump-up” and grew up until my “all day kindergarten” class at Greely elementary a couple blocks away. We lived on 24th and 12th, on the Southside of Minneapolis, the house we lived in was torn down many years ago. It was a horrible place in a horrible neighborhood.

Our basement was right out of a horror movie, big stone walls, musty and dark, junk filled every turn and every damp corner. IT WAS A SCARY PLACE.

My punishment must fit the crime, and at less than 6yo, banishment into the basement was the only solution to my rehabilitation. As the lights were turned off at the switch located above me, I watched the trap door being lowered over my head until the last flicker of light was extinguished and the horror of every noise, every imagination and every nightmare played out in my young mind at full intensity. I remember screaming, crying and begging for help. My mind began to play out how I would be devoured in this dark hole. I curled up on the steps and literally screamed until I was horse, until I could scream no longer…. this was my father’s cue that I was fully reformed and my banishment was fulfilled.

We moved to 35th and Sheridan on the north side, a big, nice home. Two fireplaces, finished basement, two stories, separate bedrooms for boys and girls. We had a play area upstairs and the big bedroom was just for us three boys. My two sisters had the pretty bedroom next to us. I got my own bed, the upper bunk, my little brother got the lower and my older brother was in a single bed by the window. Life was “good” and I was finishing k-grade in Penn elementary. I was making friends when I could but usually I was at home “working” on my fathers projects. Going the the store to buys smokes and Pepsi for dad was my most common job in the evening. Two packs of smokes for the next day and an 8-pack of returnable bottles that my father would share with us on occasion. He didn’t mind sharing the Pepsi after it went flat, but to me it was liquid heaven.

The year was 1976, I was now 9 years old. My siblings and I had worked all day cleaning the house, top to bottom! We had expectations of our efforts to be rewarded by letting us invite our friends over for a “BICENTENNIAL PARTY”…. this would be a rare experience, to have friends over? It was unheard of, at least not in the house…. that’s not allowed! Maybe outside but never in the house. As I hid under the dining room table to covertly capture the surprise and delight that would surely flow from my father as the obvious labors over the coarse of our day were to be revealed as the man I called dad traversed the interior of our home.

Yes this was it! Here he comes! The door swung open, the footsteps approached, the hacking cough…. “clomp, clomp, clomp”…. he couldn’t see me, I was hidden well, table over the top, between the wall and the radiator. I heard the plastic wrap from the new pack of smokes… “crackle, pop” watching with joy and pride… The plastic cigarette wrapper and the foil top hit the floor…. moments apart…. landing like cluster bombs in my mind. Smashing into pieces the days labor…. the dusting of pictures, the cleaning of windows, the scrubbing of floors all became ashes of a war zone. The clean floor, dashed into pieces with the plastic wrapper of a cigarette pack.

Something changed for me that day, never to return, I no longer wanted to clean the house, I no longer wanted to invite friends into my home, my fathers actions had “triggered” a new perspective, and even today, it brings back memory’s of deep sadness, 43 years later!

I really enjoyed growing up in that house, but like most things in life, time changes…. in 6th grade, things really got bad, but that’s another day, a different blog post.

The balance of marriage, family, extended family and friends is delicate at best and can be destroyed in seconds. It’s not one that comes easy for me. In the great words of the country song “life’s a dance, you learn as you go….”

I think back to my childhood and I remember the trauma of my youth….. But I can’t stay there…. I’m a dad, a stepdad, a husband, a friend, a business owner, a man! I need to find a way to rise above my past, to step into the rolls of my life. My boys deserve more than the sum of my past. My bride deserves more than my brokenness. But how? How can I be this man that God has called me to be? “I” can not! But with Jesus, I can do God’s will, I can be more than the sum of my past, I can be a man! A man after God’s own heart, I’m not perfect and my wife has an abundance of forgiveness, she was blessed with being able to see beyond my hard exterior and keeps forgiving me every day, sometimes more… but she never quits on me.

Life gives lumps, hard trials but Jesus gave more than we can ever imagine and that’s the hope I’m living in. That’s how I get up and do what he has for me. Greater are His plans and blessings than anything I can do alone. His grace is sufficient.