Big Obituary or a Small One?

I was thumbing through the paper this morning. Yes, I still get the paper. I like reading it in the quiet early morning. The smell of the newsprint on my hands, the feel of the dirt from the wrapper as the newspaper man slid it across the oil spots on my driveway. It leaves a little black stain on your fingers that you inadvertently transfer to your new white dress shirt. Anyway, after the comics, crossword puzzle, and I have my 'private time,' I come back out and finish the rest of my reading, I always turn past the obituaries. Now, I have noticed that they are getting to be big. Like a quarter page big. With a big picture and little emblems to show the dead guy's memberships in things like the Elks and being a Shriner Clown. Then I look at the others, the common man obits that are from, well, the common man. Or maybe the family just didn't have the money for the bigger one. I had to ask myself-would I 'wear that'? Would I want a big, quarter page, short story about me being dead and what my life was, what I did, or who was still left in my family after I 'crossed the bar'?

Nope, don't think so. I think I want to go out with no notice at all, just to make people wonder 'Hey, have you seen Williams? I haven't heard from him in three years. Maybe I'll give him a call.' You start thinking of this crap as you get older. I swore I would not live live past 40 when I was 40. Now, I'm 52 and stuff is getting more and more real. Physicals actually have stuff showing up. I can't remember when my knees didn't hurt or I wasn't so tired as I was approaching Coma Level at 8:30 at night, and the greatest marker-I'm listening to NPR instead of music-and liking it!

So, to wander through this life and have a big-booty article written about myself, that might be nice. I don't think I could say enough to fill a quarter page though. I know, maybe I could attach a coupon for a 'buy one-get one' somewhere. That would be cool. Pre-pay like $1000 to a neighborhood bar or drive through and the first bunch of people to eat up the $1000 win. Why can't you do that? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before? At least then I would be remembered? Not that's is the most important thing. Frankly, three or four generations down, your siblings will say 'Mark who'?

I left instructions in my will (you have to have a will when you pass a certain age; its required) to 'dispose of my remains the cheapest way possible.' I don't want to be buried so people can come 'visit me.' That, frankly, is kind of gross. Think about it. If you have any religious background, you aren't there. If not, you are a pile of ashes or a plot of ground with a piece of granite on top. Can't you get the same effect by going in your backyard and sitting quietly in front of the begonias?

Maybe a nice coupon for chocolate shake somewhere? Chocolate always makes people happy. Plus, its free! Now, that would be worth remembering.

Summer in Phoenix-you've got to be kidding!!

Is there a reason we few, we happy few, live in Phoenix, better known as Dante's Fifth Level of Hell, during the summer? Huh?

We Phoenicians cheat and go to places like San Diego or Los Angeles, anywhere close to the ocean for a week or two during the summer. However, the vast majority of us are here for the greater part of the summer, moving the hose from one location of our dried-out lawn to another and scalding our collective mouths on water that is hot enough to boil an egg emanating from the 'Cold' water tap.

I remember my mom talking about moving to Phoenix after she met and married my dad. She met him while she was employed at the Alameda Naval Air Station in San Fransisco while he and his squadron were stationed there just after the Big One. She moved, like a dutiful wife, following her husband to where he was born, on the banks of the flowing Salt River in the middle of a wide beautiful valley-in the late fall, early winter. Warm, yet cool, and full of sun, unlike her hometown which had a little reputation for fog and cool-always. Then winter rolled to spring, which lasted about two days waking her to the start of an Central Arizona summer; introducing her to the hell to come. Oh, by the way, there was no such thing as 'air-conditioning' in homes then. That was reserved only for large department stores like Hanny's which would advertise their store with a sign which simply read 'air-cooled.' Evaporative coolers were in full effect and actually worked until late June when Dante's demons rolled in to town on vacation and invoked charms and chants and burnt incense raising their brethren demons of the underworld to come lay out in this god-forsaken heat.

Every year-I swear it gets worse. Although I don't think its the weather as much as my sorry ass is just getting older. Now, I think mom cried every night during the summer time. I know I would have. I never saw her do so, but she was 35 by the time she had me. By the time I was 7, mom and dad were frankly just tired. She probably got tired of weeping uncontrollably after years of repressed despair. I never saw her cry about missing the beautiful weather of the bay, cool breezes, fog, dark days, no sun, and the smell of stale ocean water. To a Phoenician, a 'true' Phoenician defined as one who was born/stranded/abandoned/left for dead here, maybe has a generation or two or, in my case, five generations worth of idiots who never took the train out, the smell of stale ocean and endless cloudy, cool days this time of year is like offering crack to any of the people living under the Seventh Avenue Bridge. I am salivating just sitting here thinking about it!

The idea of getting up in the morning in a place, such as the one my mother left, and doing something such as going out for your morning run, you actually get to sleep in. Ya see, in Phoenix, in order for anyone to exercise during the summer, you have to wake up and be outside before the sun comes up. That's about 4:30. Sure, its still 96 decrees at that time in the morning, but the advantage is you don't die as quickly from heat exhaustion in the pre-dawn hours. Anything after the sun rises, the simple fact is, you're dead-simple. They will find you under a neighbor's tree with your eyes rolled back in your head and your tongue swollen. If you awakened for a run in the morning in San Fransisco, you don't want to go out before dawn. You want the sun to be up or at least behind the clouds above the horizon. The neighborhood coffee shops aren't open until then. The only thing up at that time are the fishing boats getting ready to go out into the bay to catch something you could eat that night. The only thing in Phoenix you could get up and go catch at a pre-dawn hour is a STD.

Look, I like living here. I know you don't believe me and frankly, you'd be right. Except for my roots going way down and having actually touched Dante's fifth level, I am in too deep to move. Our kids are here and they show no signs of moving. Sure, mom could have married a dad who could have been born on the Olympic Peninsula, or New Hampshire, but she could have married a guy from Buffalo, New York where they 26 inches of lake effect snow in one day in the winter. That would-well, that would be bad.

There is a great advantage to living here. Living here weeds out the weak. This is God's farm where He thins the herd. We are hearty souls who make a living here, we few. My son, Travis, is in El Paso, gearing up for another tour of the beautiful Middle East and I talked to him yesterday. They spent 17 hours in the sun and soldiers were dropping like flies, except for his team. They were all from Phoenix. Just another day at the pool for them. You don't find any French people here in the summer. Italians are missing too. The Germans are in the hotels and delis and the Scotch and Irish are, you guessed it, in the bars. Don't believe me? Go hang out at one of our malls. We have a bunch of them. They're marked with signs that say 'air cooled.'

Ears, walking away-

So its July 4th, 2010. Independence Day has always been a special day in the Williams household, going back to when I was a kid. The Williams lineage goes clear back to WW I with my grandfather. This one, how ever, is different.

I have been thinking. What do you say, those last words, to you little child, before they go off to war-again? What are those last precious sounds you want them to remember coming from your mouth, the last vision of you, as a parent, speaking to them, saying something so important? It has to count. It has to mean something-at least to you.

My little boy is saddling up again and leaving for Iraq. At least that where the first leg of his second deployment takes him. He was in Tikrit, Iraq the first time, Saddam's home town, two years ago. Now, he commands a team and is responsible for their lives in addition to his own. He will leave his new bride of three months and leaves tomorrow. What do you tell him that you want him to know, want him to remember, before he leaves, that he doesn't already know? What words, what cluster of sounds, do you want to put together and in just the right order, that you want him to hear, that you haven't said, used, formed in various ways over the years before?

There are a lot a things, especially a father, wants to say. A last piece of advice, a kind word, a question, some blustery quote, anything. We want to say anything and keep saying it to the ears walking away.



Because we know.



We know there is nothing more we can say that will make anything wash the chalkboard clean. We can add to it-this chalkboard, of all the memories we have generated over the years, but all that was said or done is there already, written in our memory; in our child's memory. If we did it right, those ears walking away have already heard it, seen it, tasted it, felt it with their own hands and seen it in the aging eyes of those they call 'father.'



For thousands of year, people have had to do what we now have to do, say good-bye to a part of us, our family- my child, as they walk off to face danger. For most, so it is with my son, it is to stand for a belief that there is Evil and this Evil is destroying those that are not strong enough to withstand it themselves. Sure, there is a whole political side to it, but none of that matters when it comes down to those wearing the boots. At this level, this level where two sides meet and look into each other's eyes, where names are attached to faces, the level most politicians have never seen, and some have avoided themselves, its personal, intimate, strikingly pure.



At this level, our best and brightest are forged. They do not develop their character here, they expose it.



This is not a place for politicians, or those weak in their character and morals. This is not a place for those slow at decisions or who waiver in action. This environment is where the test is made, not only for those leaving, but also for those staying behind. They are tested as well.



Sometimes, I think its harder to stay than to go. I always felt it was better to be in the melee than to watch. At least you had a feeling of some control, some belief the steps you take are under your power, your decision.

Where do we get such individuals, men and women, who can do such deeds? There's a whole list of reasons these people join the military or any first response group for that matter-good insurance, nice retirement, steady income, three hot meals a day, a personal pride, the Flag, God, a whole bunch of reasons. For my little boy, its all those things as well, but also he's going because he has orders to and most importantly, he will not leave his team without his experience from the first tour to protect them. He can't leave them-at least not now.

I went out this morning and drove to get some food for the sleeping little ones at the house. I drove through a neighborhood, also still asleep. I went into a crowded restaurant, got what I went there for, and drove home. No where along that route did I even think about a bomb going off, being shot at, kidnapped, or my life threatened by martyrs wanting a random piece of me. Not that some neighborhoods aren't a little 'sporty' but at least in this area, at this time, there was a natural calm and peace to the world. There are a lot of people who wrote checks over the centuries so that this could be so. My little boy was one of them. Thanks son.



We come back to the question of what are those last words. What do I want my boy to know? The conclusion is there is nothing. He has heard it all. He knows all that I would want to tell him because he has heard it from me for years. Those things that count, those words that have the real meaning-he knows them. He can close his eyes at night and hear me say them. I would rather he think of his beautiful bride and I am sure I will be way down on the list, but when he needs a word or two, he can tap that part of his brain and find me. I could remind him to duck or to run faster between buildings, love his team by caring for them, wear clean dry socks, pray, but he knows this better than I. I don't need to tell him. He knows.



I guess, when he walks away, when I lose sight of his face and can't smell his cologne anymore, it is then that the work begins. There is really only one things my little boy needs to hear from this father. Everything else has been said, instructed, shared-everything but one. There is one thing that no human should ever get tired of hearing or saying.

I love you.



Oh, and maybe-stay low and run fast.

To those standing watch, thanks.