Time Capsule

25 Years Ago

My parents had just moved into a new house in a rural area... a 30 minute bus ride to school every day. My grandmother had just died in early October, having just been released from the hospital from cancer treatments. Ironically, it was a heart attack that got her in the end.

A few weeks later, my mom filed for divorce, and thus started several years of court battles over the custody the kids. At least we knew that both parents wanted us.

Throughout the school year, we stayed with Mom and visited Dad on the weekends. I can still remember the trips down the canyon, and stopping by this tiny, hole in the wall convenience store. It was tradition to get a drink and candy of some sort. I think this is where I started associating food and drink as a way of dealing with pain. Inevitably, it would be a 16oz bottle of RC Cola or Pepsi, along with a Hershey's Big Block candy bar... Special Dark.

Only a few short months previous, we had been driving up this canyon several times a week, checking on the house and doing some preliminary surveying for the horse corral. Sometimes, we'd just take a drive up there at night, just for the drive itself. My parents were really into ABBA at the time, and so the song "Summer Night City" reminds me a lot of these drives.

I had just started skiing the year previous, and had gotten pretty good. One day, Dad and I made a record 26 runs down the mountain. While I may have been good at skiing, I wasn't good at putting sunblock on. The result was large, round spots on my cheeks and forehead that weren't burned, but everything else was scorched. I looked like some freakish clown for about a week.

This was also the first year of band. I wanted to take general music, but my mom said "Oh no, not with your grandpa being who he is." My grandpa was a music composer, and former bandleader and symphony conductor. So I was given a cornet. Because I had no idea how to play, I was often relegated to 3rd chair position music. Low and harmonic. I hated harmonic. It wasn't until one day when I bested a self absorbed 1st chair trumpeter in scales (and thus took his place) that I really started to enjoy the music. Over the next few years, I would play the cornet, the trumpet and the saxophone. I wanted to try the French Horn as well, but didn't have the money for it at the time.

My parents both met and married people who already had kids, and then had two more - each - to add to the mix. Where I had started out with just two siblings, I would eventually end up with ten.

10 Years Ago

My wife and I had been trying for a baby, pretty much since the day we were married. We were now sixteen months along the path with no results. We finally decided that we would plan a three week trip to Europe the following summer, and started making a list of the places we wanted to go. We found out two weeks later that my wife was pregnant.

I was working in an engineering office, but growing increasingly dissatisfied with the type of work and type of atmosphere that I experienced daily. Ultimately, I would return to school a year later in a Building Construction / Construction Management program.

We lived in a place that could be best described as halfway between decent housing and the ghetto. There was a drug house beside our apartment complex, and another one behind it. And when we weren't worrying about the druggie crowd going in and out, there were the backpack bandits to watch out for. They would break into apartments and houses and steal everything they could shove into a backpack. Mostly jewelry and electronics.

My wife and I had just started as volunteer church workers at the University Medical Center. We would spend up to five hours at the hospital on Sundays, and I would return 2-3 times a week in the evenings to do two hours of visits. In the year that we were up there, I saw birth, death and almost everything in between. Call it luck of the draw, my weeknight visit nights fell on both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. It gave me an excuse to leave the in-laws' Christmas party a little early, but I could never have imagined what I experienced at the hospital that night. As I walked through the halls between visits, I was amazed at the quietness and the peace... peace so tangible and thick you could almost scoop it with a spoon. I took a few minutes and basked in that feeling... a feeling that I've only experienced a handful of times in my life.

5 Years Ago

It was the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. We had just built a house six months previous, and I had lost my job as a field technician with a large telecommunications company just two months after that. After many months of searching for work in a depressed economy, I landed a job with a local county government as a cadastral mapper. I would work at that position for nine months before transferring to the engineering department at public works. Engineering jobs seem to be the bane of my existence; often showing up at times of greatest need, but often wearing thin on me very quickly.

During my months of unemployment, I had grown despondent, and all that was good in my marriage seemed to be evaporating. There was a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, a lot of arguing and a lot of criticism from my wife. I consciously made the decision that I'd had enough of this relationship. Since my wife seemed to be the inflammatory one, I would just let her end it. I just didn't care anymore.

What happened next is one of the great miracles in my life. In a way that I cannot adequately describe or relate, I was greatly affected by the death of a young woman in our area. It struck me to the core, and I realized how blessed and fortunate I was in my life. I made conscious efforts to improve my relationship with my wife and our situation at home.

A few months later, on Christmas Eve, after the children had gone to bed, I drove to the cemetery and put some candles on this young woman's grave. I feel that everything I have today is is largely thanks to her. If I had continued along the path I had been following, I would have lost everything that matters to me. In the golden glow of the candle light, and the falling snow, I felt that indescribable peace once more.

1 Year Ago

Our fourth child had just been born... a boy this time. About this time, I was solidifying a decision to return to school yet again, this time in a pre-med program. My doctor, a 75-yr old man, can do some rather amazing things, and had promised me that if I were to graduate from school before he retires (or dies), he'll teach me all that he knows. That's just an offer I can't refuse. I can't bear the thought of his skills and knowledge dying with him. And being able to take care of my family and loved ones has become significantly important in my life.

About this time, I was also about 7 months into my previous blog, and had met most of my blogging friends by then, many of whom I still enjoy occasional contact with today.

And there you have it... my time capsule.