"All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown,

Daytime turns to nighttime, ‘til daybreak comes around,

All my life’s a circle, still I wonder why,

Season’s spinning round again, years keep rolling by."

My daughter Marcella is playing truth or dare with her "cootie catcher" folded paper fortuneteller and my son Jacob asks me, "What is the funkiest color of your poop"? I am reminded of other embarrassing moments of my life and wanting to avoid getting the cooties as a child.

Two years later we are all way too cool to be playing with "cootie catchers" and possibly too mature for poop jokes. (At least now we don’t use the word poop). I also am learning to embrace my cooties.

My son Jacob asks me what is ironic and I struggle with an answer as I reflect upon the odd twists and turns of my life. In 1983 I was involved with helping Judy Mick return to our community after 32 years away at the state institution Colin Anderson Center. In 1998, I was training correctional officers for state penitentiaries including the new state prison that was built where Colin Anderson Center once stood.

Two years later I am free to write this sitting at a lunchroom while waiting to visit with Bell Atlantic/Verizon associates to do vocational advising.

My son Jacob and I are horsing around together and I am remembering my brother and I playing as children. Rather than being scolded by my mother, we are scolded by my wife and her mother and rather than being the younger brother I am the father and Jacob my son.

Two years later my son and his cousin Ben could care less about the rituals of the season (except perhaps the opening of presents) but I can imagine either child as an adult writing reflections as I do and as Ben’s dad Brent does. I have always experienced Ben’s dad Brent as an intellectual giant but after hearing his reflections of missing our father-in-law Bill/Baba I realize he is a giant in matters of the heart as well. I am happy to see better that side of him.

I reflect upon my father who was living in a group home and visited faithfully by his children. Today he is living in a nursing home and still visited faithfully by his children. I recently heard John Prine in concert and my wife is buying me the CD called "Souvenirs". It is this song that is particularly poignant as I think of my dad with no short-term memory, in a shared bedroom with a stranger, with little space for worldly possessions.

This season for Hanukah I gave my dad a picture of my family and set it next to his bed. I kept a "wallet-size" photo I had planned to give to him since I knew he no longer carried a wallet. "I think I have lost my wallet," he would often tell me calmly. I know how panicked I would be if I could not find my wallet. I guess having lost his parents, wife, siblings, and memories… helps to keep things in perspective. John Prine once wrote:

"Memories they can’t be boughten,

They can’t be won in carnivals for free,

Well it took me years to get those souvenirs,

And I don’t know how they slipped away from me."

Today I am happy for the photograph of my mother as a young woman given to me by my brother Rob this season as a Hanukah present. I am happy to have found the outline of my experiences two years ago that became my story today. Today I am acutely aware of the richness that can pass us by or be lost if we are unaware or have forgotten.

My wife is playing the piano and I am singing the songs my mother played for me as a child, while my daughter listens and learns to sing these songs. I imagined my mother’s spirit living in her own children and granddaughter.

Today my wife asks me if I am tired from my life activities. "Not in the least," I tell her. "We are so different’" she tells me. Vive la difference.

Today I am grateful for a $25 ticket for not wearing a seat belt. "I didn’t see you wearing your seat belt," the state trooper tells me. "But I was wearing a seat belt, I always wear a seat belt," I reply. The alternative was a speeding ticket for going 74 MPH in a 55MPH zone, which is doubled for excessive speed before it, is tripled for speeding in a construction zone and points are placed on your license.

"What kind of work do you do?" the state policeman asked me. "I do a variety of work. Today I am on my way to Cumberland, Md. to do vocational advising with Bell Atlantic associates," I reply. "I would advise you to pay better attention to the speed limit particularly where state police are waiting to catch you," he advised. "I will, and I’ll remember to wear my seat belt," I said to the policeman in a way that was full of irony.

Today my son understands what irony is and I appreciate his heightened awareness, ability for expression, and sense of appreciation for life experiences and events.

Today (as I was two years ago) I am appreciative of many things and at this very moment cannot (could not) imagine my life being any other way.

In the future… I, like my father-in-law and daughter Marcella dwell in possibilities. Marcella and I still live in a world somewhere over the rainbow, where the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

Written in memory and appreciation of the spirit of family and friends and within us all.