On the Subject of Strength: Daniel Eladio Reyes (May 20, 1941 - January 1, 2021)

 

"Eladio" (pen and pencil, from a photo)

     

Notions of weakness and strength.  I'm not certain why strength and weakness have been on my mind lately, but I have a feeling there are a number of factors making my thoughts trend in this direction.

My father-in-law, Daniel Eladio Reyes de Leon, was a strong man, in more than one sense of that word.  A hard worker, he went at manual tasks -- whether painting a wall, building a table, chopping down weeds and dead trees, or even carving that dead wood into baseball bats for his grandsons -- with a laser-focused persistence until that job was done.  Then, after his wife or daughter reminded him to eat and drink water, he would refuel and find a new physical task to attack.  Those labors gave him, I believe, great pleasure, and, like Hercules and his twelve labors, increased strength.  Eladio was not weakened by all that hard work; on the contrary, what made him feel weak was inactivity.  Don't get me wrong:  He was very content to sit in his chair watching his Yankees.  But that contented tiredness -- which often led to him being "asleep at the wheel," as my brother calls it, remote in hand -- was not weariness.  It was pure satisfaction.

"The TV's watching him at this point," his wife, Sita, would say in these moments.

One evening, sitting in the airy openness of the sala in their Santo Domingo home, Eladio wanted to make a point to me about politics.  In my fading memory, the topic was Donald Trump, though it may have been his complaints about the weakness of Leonel Fernandez, former president of the Dominican Republic.  

"Mira," he said, taking hold of my forearm in his strong grip.  He didn't drink much in his later years, but I think we may have had one or two glasses of Brugal at that point.  "Intenta soltarte."  

"Ummm," I said, not wanting , as he said, to try to get loose.  I also didn't want to disrespect him by not honoring his wishes.  So I did nothing, smiling dumbly at him, until he laughed his bright-eyed laugh,  and let me go.  He patted me on my knee.

"Ay, Dan," he said.  "La fortaleza es muy importante." ("Strength is very important.")

"Si," I answered, rubbing the feeling back into my forearm.  

My father-in-law, leaned back into his big recliner, and shut his eyes, the picture of contentment.

And of strength.  

    

Remembering My "Moongotcha" Uncle Geoffrey Fuchs

With Rheita and Geoffrey Fuchs in Ontario, Canada, summer of 1991

I received word from my dear cousin, Laura Lubin, that her father, my uncle Geoffrey "Jeff" Fuchs, had died on Friday evening, February 21, at the age of 94.  "It was peaceful and fast.  No struggling," she shared. 

This post is my remembrance of him.

My uncle, Geoffrey "Jeff" Fuchs and I have always had a special connection.  It's not like we spent much time together; my father, his kid brother Hanno, was a "homebody," so the rest of us in his nuclear family were, too.  

But when we did see each other, mostly on holidays or special occasions, (we were in New York, and Jeff's family made their home in Massachusetts) he and I always made a point to catch up with each other, usually by way of our special inside joke.  When I was a boy, he would take me over to a window, lean down or crouch behind me and say, "Hey Danny, look up there.  Do you see that?"

"See what?" I'd ask, playing along, beginning to giggle and brace myself.

"Right up there.  The moon."

Then he'd poke at my ribs and grab hold of me, yelling "Gotcha!" much to my delight.

Thus he became my "Moongotcha Uncle Jeff."  That's how he would sign off on cards, letters, and, later, emails.  Or he'd use it as a nickname for me, as in, "Hey there, Moongotcha!  How's it going?"

Corny? I guess.  Silly? For sure.  But it belonged to my uncle and me -- the two elder sons in our respective families -- and was, therefore, sacred.  I cherish that nonsense word to this day, and will do so for the rest of them.  

Rest in Peace

Geoffrey W. Fuchs

May 3, 1926 - February 21, 2020

Memorial to a Different Kind of War

My mother, Carol R. Fuchs, Washington Square Village, New York, ca. 1962

Happy Birthday, Carol Runyan Fuchs.  Today you would've turned 88 years old.  Had you made it past 57 when you gave in to cancer -- just one year older than I am now.

Appropriate, I suppose, that her birthday lands on Memorial Day this year.  She didn't die in battle the way one thinks of it when thinking of Memorial Day; however, anyone who has seen a loved one struggle against, and eventually succumb to cancer knows it's as painful, as traumatic as any war.  Less violent, maybe, but just as heart-wrenching to watch.

And the loss is no less real.

I miss you, Mom.  Thank you for your service to our family, to me personally as the man you helped me to become -- the artist, too.  And thank you for continuing to serve your lineage, in the ways I pass your unique influence on to my children.

After writing this post in my journal, I was inspired to sketch a self-portrait, something I haven't done in years.  I know it's not very good technically speaking.  But in my mind, it's one of the finest "quick sketches" I've ever done.  My mother drew in this style, and I can't help but believe I was "channeling" her somehow when I sketched it.

Let Us Celebrate the Firstborn

May 16, 2019

It's my first-born's birthday today.  Diego Reyes-Fuchs came swimming out into a fancy jacuzzi at the Elizabeth Seton Birthing Center on West Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, New York exactly sixteen years ago.

Diego emerged only after a good ten hours plus of making us wait.  He took his time, and hasn't changed much since then.  He's reasonably punctual, like his dad.  (I don't think he's ever received a tardy in his school career.)  He's just . . . "deliberate."

And that's pretty much Diego, in a nutshell.  As I said, he hasn't really changed much in all these years.  If you look at his baby pictures, you'll see an expression of skepticism, as adults "ooh" and "ahh" around him.  Diego is our Watcher.  His eyes are always wide open, taking in the world that surrounds him.  People describe him as quiet, but he embodies the cliche about still waters.

Like them, Diego Reyes-Fuchs runs deep.

A Letter to Jackson H. Fuchs on His Fourteenth Birthday

A very young Jackson Fuchs, looking like a Baby Gap ad

Dear Jackson:

Having spent the last fourteen years in the role of your father, I can honestly say there's nothing in my life I've enjoyed doing more.  You have managed to illuminate my world with that "special light" your mother describes, since almost the beginning.  And for me that light shines in a full circle, because I can't see it without thinking about my father, Hanno, the man from whom you got your middle name.  You somehow give off a very similar light, which is what makes you my son, and one of my favorite human beings on the planet, as well.

Yes, we have our differences on occasion.  There are times when we yell at each other -- me the stern parent, you the obstinate teen.  But we always come back together, with a hug, or some other, less obvious expression of our undying love.

Some cultures believe the child chooses its parents.  I don't know if that's true, having seen so many BAD matches over the years.  But if it's true in your case, Jackson, I have just one thing to say:  Thank you.  Thank you for choosing me as your father.  And thank you for shining your beautiful light on my world.

Happy birthday, son.  I love you,

Dad

Danny at Thirty

As I washed my hands in the staff restroom of the large, suburban high school where I work as one of six assistant principals, I fixed on my graying mustache, and a memory came to me in a flash.  I was probably about eleven or twelve, and my mother asked if she could draw me.  My mother was an artist, so the request was not an unusual one; she seemed always to be sketching one of us -- my younger brother, our father, or myself.

She liked to do quick pencil sketches.  Her lines were rapid and many, which gave the pictures a kind of unique immediacy.  Of course, my language to describe her work back then was not quite so florid.  I probably thought her drawings were "cool" or "nice."

One night, as we sat in the living room of our dark-blue shingled split level, my mother sipping, I imagine, her ubiquitous gin and tonic, she came up with a new, peculiar idea.

"I'm going to draw you as I would imagine you'll look at age thirty," she proclaimed.

"Thirty?"  It seemed so distant to me.  That would make the year 1993.  Images of flying cars and robot butlers filled my head.

She had me sit in my father's big, mustard-colored easy chair, and she got to work.

"Get your giggles out," she commented, as I customarily got attacks of nervous laughter, set off by the way her eyes darted from my face to the paper, where her fingers became shockingly nimble, revealing a part of her life that fascinated me:  her artist's training.

I realize now that these modeling sessions were a primitive form of meditation for me, as it was necessary to level my breathing, and steady my gaze on a certain point.  Normally, I'd reach a kind of "no-mind" state, akin to being asleep with my eyes open.  On this occasion, however, I imagined what thirty would be like; would I be married?  To Debbie Francis, maybe?  She was my current fascination back then, with sandy blond hair and dimples that made me want to entertain her just to see them appear.  Did we have kids?  Were we rich?  Were we happy?

Ten minutes or so later, she stopped looking up from the paper, continuing to scribble.  "You can move," she said, her eyes still down.

When I started to make my way over to her, she held the sketchbook against her chest, hiding the picture.

"Oh no.  You'll need to wait till I'm done.  Go watch some T.V."

One of my mother's earliest sketches, "Daddy"
from her high school art class

I bounded down the short flight of stairs to the playroom, where my brother was watching something sports-related.  I'll place this memory on a Saturday afternoon, so let's say "Bowling for Dollars," or "ABC's Wide World of Sports."

"Okay," she called a few minutes later.  "Come on up here."

When I returned to her, she had on the self-critical scowl she always wore after completing a new piece of work.

"Well, here it is."

I took the sketchpad from her.  She'd titled it "Danny at 30."  It was my face, but she'd moved my hairline back a bit, given me some laugh lines at the temple-edges of my eyes, and a dark mustache.  I realized some years later that the picture looked a lot like a studio photo of my dad when he was around that age.

"Thirty," I repeated.

"What do you think?" she asked.

I didn't really know what to say, being as her reason for wanting to draw a picture of the Future Me was a mystery.

"It's nice."

She giggled at my response.

I wonder now, twenty-five years past the age she was trying to envision, and forty-five
years after the memory of her creation of "Danny at Thirty," if her motive had anything to do with the fact that a fierce bout with pancreatic cancer would prevent her from ever seeing me at that age.  She died in 1988, a few weeks shy of my 25th birthday, long before I started growing the mustache I now wear as a matter of course.

I wonder, too, making my way down the school hallway back to my office, where that picture is today.

Diego and His Dogs

A boy, his technology and his dogs

The older of our two boys has an interesting and strong connection with our dogs.  There's a photo I took of Diego recently in which he's seated on the floor in our living room, (or "sala," as we call it here in Casa Reyes-Fuchs) his headphones on, facing the two dogs who are drowsing in the two chairs before him.  Diego is paying attention to them, but not.  He is both attentive and dismissive all at once, and that seems to be just fine as far as Ginger and Ally are concerned.

Of course, the two dogs worship and fawn over me, as they've imprinted on me the role of B.A.D. (Big Alpha Dog), but their love of Diego is far more genuine.  Yes, they love Jackson and Jeanette too, but Jackson's is a "fly-by" kind of love, as he is in a near constant state of motion, so that the dogs wag their tails when he comes by, as if to say, "Okay, we're not going to get too used to this."  With Mom, it's a treat they adore, similar to Diego, but less like a sibling.  They seem to know she's of the B.A.D. class, as well.  

It's with Diego, the teenager, the one who I see breaking out of his shell in how he tries to interact more confidently with adults, like the waitress at our local Mexican restaurant who greets him by his name, that our dogs have the true connection.  Maybe he's a Cesar Millan-style dog whisperer in the making, I don't know.  Or maybe he's just found someone who will love him in the unconditional, non-judgmental way in which he needs to be loved.  

And maybe the dogs have found the same thing.

Bringing Them Back

Me and Mom in a Photo Booth, circa 1965

November is "National Novel Writing Month," and I've taken it upon myself to give it a try.  So far I'm desperately behind where I need to be to actually be finished by the 30th, but I've got something.  I'm never comfortable writing about my writing while it's happening, but I will say this:  It's both wonderful and sad to be bringing back people who have been gone from my life for many years.  The process of writing forces me to have to recall details and moments, to make the characters "come to life."

In this particular story, I am bringing to life a character based on my mother, another on my father, and an older couple based on my grandparents.  All of these individuals died years ago, and as I flesh out these characters, it brings a host of emotions.  In one way I'm delighted to see them all, and then there's that sadness, that reminder that they're gone.  If you've ever had a dream in which your departed loved one appears, then you know the regret that comes the moment you wake up.  

By spending time on this novel, I'm prolonging that dream a bit.  It's difficult to go on, however, knowing it will have to end.  But then, one could easily say the same thing about life.  And yet we go on, and do the best we can, in the hopes we leave some kind of legacy for those who come after us.  

So, for this reason I will continue to work on the novel, continue to bring them all back to life, in the hopes I'll create something that I can leave behind -- something that will live on, long after I am gone.

The Soil Connects

Jeanette, Diego and Jackson, showing off a recent crop of beets in our back yard

Jeanette and I recently began attending something called a "Citizen Gardener" class.  Sponsored by the Sustainable Food Center of Austin, the class is designed not only to help novice gardeners understand what they're doing -- or trying to do -- in their back yards, but also to train a corps of volunteers who presumably will go out and share their skills in community gardens around the Austin metro area.  It's one of those great ideas I wish had been my own, because it manages to incorporate both the fun of gardening with the larger idea of service, and connecting with the community around you.

I'm all for the idea of connecting, though I'll be honest:  this class is more about connecting with my wife and children than it is about any grander sense of the word.  Yes, I do like the idealistic notion of breaking down the barriers between myself and my Fellow Man, but I'm even more excited about doing something special with Jeanette.  My wife and I don't see each other enough.  It's a simple statement, but it's also one that resonates.  It's the kind of sentence you read and then nod your head and think, "You know what?  My spouse an d I don't see each other enough either..."  It's the nature of the world we live in.

So to have an activity, a hobby, or a passion we can share is something I think we've always looked for.  Lately, we've tried yoga, which has been great.   In the past, we've played a little tennis together, worked out at the gym on occasion, and even went roller blading, albeit briefly, which we joke about, because it was supposed to be what we did on our first date, and it only took me about fifteen years to make good on that promise.

Gardening is something that I think will work better than these other activities, only because it ihas always been a connector for me.  When I think of home gardening, I immediately think of my father, out in our yard at 18 Hartford Lane.  (Once again, as my friend Gayle Saks-Rodriguez points out, all roads lead back to Hanno.)  He enjoyed waking up early and getting out into the yard.  He planted many trees, including a row of poplar saplings he ordered through the mail -- forty-inch twigs that became, eventually, a sixty-foot fence of dappled sunlight.  (I noticed last time I passed by the house at 18 Hartford Lane that they'd cut down the trees.  It's their right, I suppose, to prune and start anew.)

In addition, my father grew a beautiful rock garden that flanked the front entrance to our home, filling it with what I remember to be a wide variety of multicolored flowers.  He planted rose bushes and an apple tree.  He had a back patio built, around a lovely mimosa tree, whose leaves I recall being silk-smooth to the touch.

And he did try has hand at vegetables.  The way time distorts memory, I couldn't tell you how many varieties of vegetables there were, or for how many seasons he grew them.  This would have been in the early 1970's, some 40 years ago now.  Of course, when I close my eyes and think back, there were tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and lettuce, all of it shiny and bright as the produce rack at the supermarket, just after the piped-in recording of distant thunder rises up and the sprayers have spritzed the merchandise.

I do know he tried his hand at corn one summer.  I specifically remember it climbed the posts of our back porch, along with some grape vines.  Where it gets spotty is when I try to recollect whether or not a crop was ever produced.  Things get further confused by a story my father used to tell about his own childhood.  He told it every time we ate corn on the cob, and though my brother and I groaned each time ("God, Dad, not that story again."), it's a good one, and I tell it myself, as I've no doubt my younger brother does at his own dinner table, to his own family, some 1,700 miles away from mine.

When my dad and his family arrived from Europe in 1940 or so, they came together for a dinner at a cousin's house in Larchmont, New York.  It was a big meal -- maybe a holiday (Thanksgiving, if you like) -- and one of the dishes on the table was corn on the cob.  This was exotic to the Fuchs family.  They'd never had it before.  When he and his older brother (probably 12 and 15 respectively) bit into the strange vegetable, they looked at each other, eyebrows raised at the amazing sweetness and flavor.  It was so good, my father told, that they began to laugh, and the two of them continued to laugh, eating ear after ear of delicious sweet corn as they went.  It was for this reason that my father always classified corn on the cob, for the remainder of his life, as either "Laughing Corn" (worthy of his stamp of approval) or not.

I don't know whether the Citizen Gardener course will ever fulfill its promise to connect me and my family with the members of our larger Austin community.  I will say this, however:  Getting out into my garden has connected me to my wife, to my children, and to the memories that keep my ancestors alive within me.  I am creating memories for my own children, just as my father did for his.    And in this way, the class has paid itself back already.  Tenfold.

The author, getting ready to build his first palette composter. 

When Your Friends Become Your Family

Every once in a while, I steal a peak at my nephew's Facebook page.  He's in his early twenties, and the online life he's leading is WAY different than mine.  For one thing, he's got far more friends.  They write almost exclusively about what appear to be inside jokes.  In other words, they're speaking a language I don't quite understand.  I wonder, as I browse his page, how many of these 1,000 + individuals are his "actual" friends.  The reason I wonder this is because I remember, so fondly, my own friendships from that time in my life.  It's a bit of a cliche to say it, but when you're in your 20's, your family -- the one you grew up with -- recedes into the background, while a select group of friends comes to the fore.  In essence, these folks become your family.

I was lucky enough to have a few special groups of friends.  In college, we lived first in dormitories, then in a collection of thin-walled, over-priced apartments off campus.  There was talk at one time of trying to rent an entire house together, a proposition that excited and intrigued me.  Doonesbury was one of my favorite comic strips at the time, and I liked the idea of having a "Walden" where my friends and I could regenerate in a kind of self-selected, co-ed fraternity.

For whatever reason, our commune never came to be, but it didn't matter much:  Just because we lived in separate places didn't make that group any less of a family.  In fact, I'm still in close contact with many of my college friends today.

And I did get to live my commune fantasy eventually, if only briefly, when I lived in a place I've written about before -- the Cava de San Miguel apartment in Madrid, Spain.  Those friendships, with an international flair now (Spaniards, Italians, Americans, Germans and Dutch came together in that place), were part of what made that spectacular flat so special.  Granted, the relationship that brought me there was falling apart, and I was carrying around some pretty heavy grief at that time in my life, but I still enjoyed the sense of community in that sprawling old Madrid apartment.  I'll never live anywhere like it again.

Fast forward a few years, and I am a young man waking up from a failed marriage, in need of a place to lick his wounds.  Other friends, in similar moments of their lives, have found a summer house in a place with the rather magical name of Big Indian, New York.  The drafty farm house provided a lovely sanctuary for all of us, and we had some wonderful times that summer of 1993.  The experience in the house in the Catskills was the closest I've come to a commune and to the Doonesbury Walden experience, complete with my own "puddle" (actually a little bend in the Esopus River, that provided a perfect soaking tub) in which I could luxuriate on hot days, thinking about nothing more than how much I was enjoying the time with my friends.

Of course, as with all things, I look at my two young sons and wonder what sorts of communal experiences they will have when they're older.  Jackson is the social butterfly.  In a way, his entire life has been one big commune; the moment he walks in the door, anywhere he goes, it seems, the hellos start coming.  Diego might be less likely to want to share his space with others.

Who knows, though?  Like me, he may find himself one day surrounded by a small group of friends who, for that brief moment, become his family.  I could see myself visiting him -- in my sixties now -- smiling, and wondering, as I listen to their code-like banter, just what the hell my son and his friends are talking about.

The Death of Wonder

"Did you ever wonder what dogs do on their day off? They can't lie around and do nothing; that's what they do for a living." -- George Carlin, American Humorist

The irony of today's post is not lost on me.  Much of what I call "navel gazing" is really comprised of me wondering about stuff, and hoping it's "relate-able" enough for those of you who take the time to read my seven-to-twelve paragraphs on whatever the current thing I'm wondering about might be.

I'm always wondering, and I always have.  My father encouraged it; in fact, he was the one who introduced me to George Carlin and his observational wonderment -- some of it pretty misanthropic at times.  My father wondered a lot himself, sometimes taking the time to write down his musings on three-by-five index cards, a practice I have inherited from him.

When I was in college, my colleagues and I would partake in certain activities meant to, shall we say, "spur wonderment."  I used to wonder so much that at one point, over a pizza that was being devoured by myself and a couple other ravenous college friends, one of them lost his temper and, with his mouth full of cheese and tomato sauce, he let out, "Jesus, Dan, enough!  Do you ever wonder who wonders?"

Well that shut me up.  For the time being, anyway.

And these days, I do wonder who wonders.  In this age of Google and Wikipedia, and Ask Jeeves and the rest, one really needn't wonder any more.  The answers are all out there, just a few clicks away.  My nine year old regularly asks me to "google" the answers to questions he has for me, the once omniscient father.

My brother and I still laugh about how my father used to stammer through explanations of the things we didn't understand.  He was an unusually intelligent person, and nine out of ten times he knew the actual answers to the questions we had for him.  But on that tenth occurrence, we always knew when he was stumped.  He'd say things like, "Well, now you know, that's an interesting question," or "There are a lot of conflicting theories about that."

We'd let him struggle for a while, before one of us inevitably said, "In other words....."  And the other  would respond, "You don't know."

After a few years of this, the "you don't know" wasn't necessary any more.  Dad would either laugh and admit that he really didn't know the answer, or he'd defiantly say, "No, no, I actually know this!"  It didn't matter much; our admiration for him didn't flag.  He wasn't all-knowing, but that was okay.  He still knew a hell of a lot more than either of us did.

I wonder . . . if all the answers are out there on the Internet somewhere, is the quest for knowledge over?  Is the wise man on the  mountaintop out of a job?

More importantly, I wonder this:  If there's nothing left to wonder about, do we continue to be human?  Or have we morphed into something else?  And is that something else something more, or something less?

The Diarist Gene Has Been Passed Down

"No, Jackson!" I heard Diego say, with an urgency that made me brace myself for whatever conflict would come next. "That's Daddy's journal."

They were in our home office, at one of our desks, where they had been doing well for the previous ten minutes or son. I could hear them in there, engaging in imaginative play, which I love, because it requires them to actively use their minds, rather than sitting passively in front of the TV set.

This entreaty by Diego was louder than the banter had been up to that point, and I came in and saw Jackson with a pen, poised to personalize my personal journal, where I write things like this piece in longhand. Truth be told, I don't really mind finding Jackson's work in my journals -- within reason. He tends to draw odd little sketches, which I simply write around, and they end up being an interesting adornment to my work, when all is said and done.

"Here Jackson," I said, before he could start loudly pleading his case, and I reached up high on my shelf and handed him his own blank book. (I have a few extras lying around, because I'm an optimist and I count on the next day coming.) He immediately began work on a fascinating seascape, then asked me to draw him a shark, so that he could put a monkey in its toothy mouth.

"Look Dee-AY-go!" he said, all smiles, showing off his new journal to his big brother and before he could whine about not having one, I asked Diego if he would like a blank book too.

"Sure!"

He then wrote the first page of his new journal, which he dated, and titled "About My Life." His first sentence, which I put right up there with "Call me Ishmael" and "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times" is "My name is Diego Reyes Fuchs and I got a dog in April."

And with that, a proud Fuchs tradition continues . . .

Cabin Fever

Yes, I love my family, and yes, the births of my children are the two greatest days of my life. It is beyond question that I would do anything at all for my family, up to and including "taking a bullet."

Now let me qualify all those lovely and true sentiments with an even truer one: We have spent these past two weeks plus together and we need some TIME APART. As much as we all love each other, we have spent, essentially, 100% of our time in each other's presence, since Friday, 12/23. And I don't care what they tell you, that's just not right. Parents and their children are not meant to spend all their time together. If you don't believe me, go rent two films that illustrate the point: Mosquito Coast, in which Harrison Ford decides to take his family "off the grid" and Tempest, Paul Mazursky's re-telling of Shakespeare's tale of Prospero, played in this version by an amazing, scenery-chewing John Cassavetes, at the end of his life and the height of his acting powers. In both instances, the notion that a family can spend all its time together is de-bunked, to tragic (and comic) results.

I suppose one could make the argument that there are "other cultures" in this world -- pygmies and the like -- who keep their young 'uns with them always. I have no doubt this is true, but it's a cradle-to-grave thing. We're a modern American family. We are social creatures outside the nucleus of our little gene puddle. For the children, school plays an important role in this regard. It's not only the place where they learn to read and write and do math; it's where they practice navigating relationships, without the help of their adoring parents. It's practice for real life.

As for me, I'll be honest: I like working. If I'm in a place that feels professional and that values what I put into it, then I tend to get more than my share out of it. My present job has me feeling more comfortable and "at peace" ( not something you hear from an AP all too often) than I have since I left Satellite Academy in 2004.

I can't speak for my wife except to say that I know she feels valued at work, despite all the challenges it entails. She has been good enough to look after those people for the past couple of days while I have since gone back to work, breathing a sigh of relief as I backed the car out of the driveway on Monday. I'm sure Mrs. Fuchs will do the same thing later this morning.

Let me repeat: I love my children dearly. For those of you who look, starry-eyed, at your little ones as they slumber in their cribs, wishing you could spend 24/7/365 with God's Little Blessings, I say three things: 1) more power to you, 2) please try not to judge me, and 3) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR . . .

Remembering Hanno Fuchs (Dec. 23, 1928 - April 18, 2000)

As I back my way cautiously down the fold-out ladder from
the attic, my son Jackson stands below, imploring me to let him up so that he
can “help me.” Instead of getting into
the first argument of the day, I employ my acting training, convincing him that
what I’ve got in my hands is too difficult for me to handle. Without his help. He reaches up, and I hand the album down to
him.

“What’s this, Daddy?” my six-year-old asks, and I take the
opportunity to walk him through the photos with which I’ve populated this
book. The first one is of my father as a
boy (pictured here) – probably not too much younger than Jackson is now. There are shots of him in the army, others
with me and my brothers and sister, one with our friends the Kasais on
vacation, and still more traveling in Europe.

“Today’s my father’s birthday,” I tell my son. He gets a puzzled look on his face, as he
tries to comprehend how someone could both be dead and have a birthday, as well.

But then he asks me a pretty sophisticated question (and
with the best grammar I’ve ever heard him use): “How old would your dad have been if he were alive?”

After making a big deal about his sentence structure, and
use of the subjunctive conditional, I tell him his grandfather would have
turned 83 today, which, to him, sounds, of course like the age of Methuselah or
Rip Van Winkle. We leaf through the
pages together, and Jackson is more tickled at seeing my various “looks” – long
hair, pony tail, full beards, goatees and such.

Finally, I place the childhood portrait of my dad next to
Jackson’s and ask him, “Do you think you and grandfather look alike?” He grins his sparkling Hannoesque grin, nods and says, “He’s looking one way, and I’m
looking the other.”

I have no real way of knowing what place my father holds, or
will hold, in the hearts of my two sons. This is the nature of loss; it is highly subjective. The departed lives on, so to speak, differently
in each of his survivors. For me, I see
my father’s face in the mirror more and more with each swiftly passing
year. For my wife, some of the photos
bring her back to a time and place where she can recall Hanno’s kind, paternal
embrace.

For my father’s siblings – an older brother and two younger
sisters – he’s someone else altogether. I’d imagine if he and his brother were anything like me and mine, there was
a period of rivalry and intense competition, followed by a peaceful and satisfying
acceptance of one another as friends. His sisters have both shared with me a deep admiration, described by
them as a form of hero worship that changed little over the course of their
time with him.

I don’t presume to know much more than this. My siblings and I have discussed his impact
on our lives from time to time. For my
own part, I can say that he validated me and my responses to the world around
me at every opportunity. He wasn’t
perfect; I know that now. But my father
was the person I need him to be – kind, understanding and forgiving.

As I’ve stated before, I believe the greatest gift my
parents gave me was the capacity to love. Yes, there are other things that are important in life, but none more
than this.

Happy 83^rd, Dad. I miss you.

The Exceptional Sleep Patterns of an Exceptional Family

It’s before sunrise, and I’m the only one awake in our
house. The thermostat has just kicked in above my head, somewhere in the
attic. There’s a humming, the collisions
of once still molecules, as the water in my coffee pot begins to sputter and
boil in the kitchen.

I have that distinctly American (or is it distinctly male? Or distinctly American male?) satisfaction that comes with the knowledge that
your family is indoors, warm and safe, despite the chilly darkness just outside
the door. Everyone is present and
accounted for, even though it did get a bit confusing there for a while last
night. It would have been amusing to
watch time lapse photography of our movements. Jeanette was the only one who stayed in one
place.

We all started out – the four of us – snuggled up in the
king size master bed, watching the finale of the Next Iron Chef America. Diego was the first to give in to sleep, as
usual. I transported him over to his bed
without any problem. Jeanette fell out
shortly after learning that Geoffrey Zakarian would join the ICA Pantheon. “Should have been Faulkner,” she muttered. As I said, she stayed right where she was.

I then offered to lie down in our guest bed with Jackson
until he fell asleep. (He’d drifted off
for a power nap on the couch while his mother was preparing dinner and was now
energized as a result.) He liked that
idea, so I lay there with him for a time, both of us tossing and turning,
scratching and farting, until finally I informed him I would need to do the
dishes and that he could either stay where he was with the door open, or sleep
in his room, along with his brother, but with the door shut.

After briefly weighing the options, Jackson chose the guest
bed, knowing he could listen to me in the kitchen, which soothes him for some
odd reason. I did my bid in the kitchen,
watching the conclusion of the Ravens-Chargers game in the process.

When I was done, I went back to the guest room and checked
on Jackson who had succumbed, proving there is a God and that He is merciful.

I then went back to the sala
and lounged on my easy chair, where I watched a bit of Conan’s “Best-of”
special before dozing off.

I made my way into my own bed and went to sleep. At some point in what I can only refer to as “the
middle” of the night, I was aware of being crowded, and I could hear the not
unfamiliar sound of an extra set of miniature lungs breathing in my air.

Jackson.

Rather than move him, I chose to move myself. Back to the guest bed. Which was, of course, occupied by our dog
Ally, who will take any door left open by a sleepwalking child as her
opportunity. I shooed her away and sat
directly on Diego, who was also in the bed.
I then carried him to his bed (for the second time, mind you) before coming back and collapsing on the
guest bed one final time.

The Reason We Had Two

Yesterday morning I caught Diego and Jackson in a lovely, unguarded moment. They were seated together in my comfortable leather chair in the family room, with Diego's "Snakes and Reptiles" book open over their laps.

"Look at this one, Jackson!" Diego said again and again, to which his younger brother replied, "Whoa!" or "Oooh!" or "Wow!"

It was a rare glimpse, and I did what I could to preserve the moment, snapping a few pictures on my phone, but not so conspicuously as to cause them to scatter like Brooklyn roaches. When they leafed upon a picture of a creature that looked particularly creepy, scary or interesting, Diego read aloud to Jackson, who sat there more transfixed and still than he ever is with me when I'm reading to him each night before sleep.

I cast no judgment or aspersion on anyone who has chosen to have only one child. Believe me. There are moments -- regularly -- when I envy them. Like my brother and me, and my father and uncle before us, Diego and Jackson fight almost constantly. Mutual combat is their preferred mode of expressing their love for one another.

It's in these rare, peaceful moments, however, that I'm reminded of why we chose to have two. I can count on one hand the number of "lifelong" friends I have. My brother Mike is always first on that short list. It's a comfort to know, as someone who won't be around all that much longer (I'm speaking relatively, of course. No veiled "threat" intended.) that Jackson and Diego will have each other's backs, so to speak.

They may not always see eye to eye on every issue; in fact, they may grow up to be two very different and divergent people. I have a feeling, though, that their friendship is being forged in the fire that is their childhood, and that the iron being cast will be strong indeed.

Oh and by the way: in case you're wondering, Diego and Jackson have no new "friends" on the way. Nor will they. Ever. As a great man once said, I may be dumb, but I ain't stupid.

Having Something Left

It wasn't until I pulled my car out of the parking lot that I finally exhaled. That was the kind of day it was at Cedar Ridge High School.

After a good early-morning meeting with my old boss, who now serves as our external coach, I found myself in Z.J.'s annual Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) meeting. Z is a complicated young man with a host of issues, and he's also the first student to latch onto me the way students sometimes do. The meeting was going well, until Z and Dad got into a disturbing verbal confrontation that included Z's father claiming Z's grandparents feared him. I don't doubt that this is true, as Z can be unpredictably explosive, but those words -- "They're afraid of you, Z" -- were like five daggers; I could almost hear them piercing the boy's heart. As often happens with Z, he began crying, and the meeting was adjourned, to be continued at a later date.

The day snowballed from there. Two Downs Syndrome students got into a physical fight in the Life Skills classroom, a girl was stumbling drunk, I busted a kid for smoking in the bathroom, and a colleague was physically threatened by a student.

In addition, I had to fit in two classroom walkthroughs, participate in a learning walk with our coaches and discipline several other students.

I suppose the good news is that the world kept turning and all of us survived -- albeit wearily -- to see another day.

The most important test I passed came after all of this was over, after the aforementioned exhalation. When I picked up the children, Jackson was beside himself, inconsolable that we'd moved him into the ACE after-school program, without informing him he'd be leaving LEAP. I inhaled again, and the breath stuck in my chest. There was a clearly defined moment when time stopped, I stepped out of my body, and made a decision. It was when I walked around to Jackson's side of the car to help him into his seat.

The burning anger, the wish to lash out made its way toward the surface, and before reaching for the door handle and yanking it open, as (I'm sorry to say) I've done before, I imagined the day's troubles rolling off me like raindrops off a newly painted automobile.

(Breathe out.)

"Jackson?" I said in a calm, measured tone that made him stop and look into my eyes. "Would you feel better about ACE if we went to look for some vampire teeth?" (He's been asking for them since Halloween.)

"Yes," he said, smiling through watery eyes. "And Daddy?"

"Yes, Jackson?"

"I'll give ACE a chance."

The three of us went on to have a pleasant, fun evening together, which helped remind me that there's much more to my life than ZJ's tears or kids getting tickets for smoking in bathrooms, or sitting with a crying boy who can't understand why he'd been hit in the temple by a bully. That simple choice to let out that deep breath and give my son the love he needs fortified me, built me back up and made it possible to come into work this morning with a smile on my face.

(And ending my evening last night with a shot of Cuervo and a cold Lone Star chaser didn't hurt either....)

Sometimes a Cigar is . . . MORE Than a Cigar

I'm no longer a smoker, thank God. The moment I threw out my last pack of cigarettes -- after a particularly medieval dentist visit back in the year 2000 or so -- was a sincere one, and I have no urges to return to that sort of butchery. Not to mention the less visible damage that I did to my insides.

However...I will admit there have been moments in the intervening years during which I've entertained a flirtation with cigars. Yes, the stinker and I have had an on-again-off-again relationship since 1993, on my 30th birthday, when I went into Village Cigars in Sheridan Square. It was a cold night and I was pretty well bundled up as I recall. I had the salesperson clip the end of my stogie -- probably something inexpensive like a Garcia y Vega -- and made my way out into the December night.

I get why smokers smoke. I don't defend it; I'd encourage anyone reading this to try and quit. However I refuse to judge anyone for smoking, because I've been there, and I recall not only the addiction and sense of relief when lighting up, but also the privacy it affords. Those five minutes it takes to smoke that cigarette are mine and mine alone. Time stops during the cigarette break, and one can reflect, as they watch their cloud open out from their lips and nostrils.

With a cigar, those five minutes are expanded to 15, 20, 30 minutes, depending on your hurry. My winter walks in the West Village were lovely -- those red-brick brownstones lit up for the holidays in the crisp night, but the cold sometimes cut those walks short.

Last Saturday night the boys and I went to a dinner party at a friend's place, and our host was kind enough to offer me a cigar to chew on as we watched football on his large-screen TV in the living room -- children and dogs running noisily around.

At one point, after enough beers had gone in me, I thought it would be a good idea to go out into the mild Texas evening and light the Bad Boy up. I grabbed some matches from atop my friend's fridge and -- with the burn ban solidly in mind -- I went out on his back deck and lit up.

There, in the glow of my cigar ash, as I puffed, locomotive-style, a memory came to me like a shot. It emerged from far deeper down the well -- much earlier than 1993. This flash was more like '73, and I was in my grandparents' living room at 42 Maple Hill Drive in Larchmont, New York. My "Opa," Bill Fuchs, sat in his favorite chair, feet up on the ottoman, puffing beatifically on his cigar. I'd forgotten my grandfather was an aficionado. I don't know what brand he smoked (he was in the import-export business, so I'm sure it was a good one), and now have a notion to ask my uncle and aunts.

No one complained about his smoke -- partly because it was the early 70's and the tobacco industry was still running full throttle. Mostly though it was all any of us had ever known. That room without cigar smoke would be as sad and lonely as if it had lacked Bill himself, which it would do, sadly, not too many years later.

The Other Grandfather

I've already written about my father's father, Bill Fuchs, in a previous post. My mother’s father was a man named Herman Thomas Runyan, who was born on April 6, 1897 and died in 1986, while I was away at college. He had spent the final few years of his life living with us in our house, before moving to a rest home in his final days.

Herman was a bit of a mystery to me. I didn’t see much of him growing up, as he was down in Little Rock, Arkansas, which, on the few occasions I did visit, felt completely foreign to me. I remember two little girls cornering me in a supermarket there, one of them saying to the other, “It’s him. It’s Jack Tripper from Three’s Company.”

“Uh, I’m twelve,” I answered.

“Yeah, twelve,” my brother, ten at the time, added.

“Oh my gosh,” one of the girls giggled. “I just think y’all have the cutest li’l accent!”

Herman has a special place in my life, because he is the subject of the only short story I’ve managed to publish thus far, The Watch, which chronicles his days with us at our home in Purchase, as his health deteriorated. They printed it in the Winter, 1985 edition of the SU literary magazine at that time, The Review. It’s not a bad story, I have to say. I just re-read it for the first time in years, and it holds up fairly well. It’s really about a young person having to face up to the aging process, and with the fact that everyone he loves, and he himself, will die one day.

He was my mother’s subject, as well, not only in a high school pencil sketch (above) but in a lovely poem, which is actually a nice companion piece to my short story, called Tea Parties:

The man who used to throw me in the air,

and make me laugh, and shiver with excitement,

I now give baths to.

Every other day: we plan them carefully.

We exercise much more thought

than we ever did

for the tea parties of my childhood.

When he was thirty-five, I was five.

We sliced the apples very thin

and laid them on soda crackers.

Our tea was milk,

and afterwards we often took a walk

in the sweet-and-bad smelling Chicago dusk,

under the rumbling El.

But he can hardly walk now.

He’s 87.

So weak, so frail.

Should “we” lower him into the tub,

or put him in it seated on a stool?

He lets me decide.

Look at all the diamonds,

I used to say.

(The mica in the sidewalk

on which the moon shone

as we walked hand in hand.)

I gently wash his face.

Briskly soap his back, arms, chest, legs.

Attend to each misshapen toe,

then hand the cloth to him

for the remaining parts.

When I was young,

The veins and muscles of his arms entranced me.

He was so strong and wonderful!

The money-earner who, one special payday,

brought me roller skates.

He’s so thin now.

Naked.

Rising slowly, carefully,

from his beloved bath.

A rosy victim of a holocaust.

Those magic summer days!

Squealing little girls with blue lips

splashing ‘round him in Lake Michigan.

How gallantly he shepherded us

back and forth on the trolley.

I help him dress. We reminisce.

“Do you remember our tea parties?”

he asks.

“Oh, yes, I do,” I answer,

“and all the rest.”

Looking back, I wish I’d made more of my time with him – gotten to know him a bit better. Back then, in my early twenties, I was so very self involved; I didn’t see what a wealth of knowledge, and interesting stories I had with me in that little TV room in Purchase, New York.

I do know, from reading our family genealogy, Tracking the Descendants of Isaac Barefoot Runyan by Marie Runyan Wright, (Gateway Press, Baltimore, 1980), that Herman served in the U.S. Navy during World War I, in the Medical Corps aboard the U.S.S. Wyoming.

I also remember him as an exceedingly sweet man who, in his later years, would become effusively emotional at the drop of a hat. When my friends would come over and say hello to him at our house, he must have experienced their greeting as a gesture of kindness, because he would invariably cry.

I have a photograph of him somewhere, in his Navy whites, handsome as all get-out, with a confident look on his young face. He had his whole life ahead of him.

I miss him, just as I miss all the other Runyans and Fuchses who have left. To say that I’ll see them again someday sounds too clichéd, and I’m not certain I believe it. What feels more accurate to me, if no less clichéd, is that they live on in me, and in my children.

I’m starting to understand that our ancestors are always with us.