2009 so far...

So, for a host of reasons, this year has not started well. First, as many already know, I almost lost my job. In fact, I did lose my job as part of a layoff that cost my company more than 70 workers. At 11:34am, I was in an office finding out that I was going to be unemployed for the first time in close to two decades...and with our referral only five days away (well, five "referral days...but by now you know what that means). Fortunately, by 4:22pm that afternoon, I received a phone call from the director of my department advising me that he had contacted another department and found another position for me so I would just be transferring and not losing a minute of pay.

Moving forward from that, my birthday approached. This was a "landmark" year and I turned 40. I have never been one to dwell on numbers and ages and have always felt like you are only as old as you feel, and I have always felt quite young at heart. This year still hit pretty hard. Forty is just a little too old to call yourself young. I know I have plenty more miles in me, but I am years past my prime and, no matter how healthy a lifestyle I lead (not that I do at the moment) I will never again run, jump, climb or look like I used to. My friends and family definitely did there best to make me feel better about it and I could not be happier or more appreciative for each of them. My wife threw me the best birthday party I have ever had about a week-and-a-half early and it helped to soften the blow.

One day after my party, I received a phone call from my brother Steve that my father was in a coma in the hospital. He had been through this type of thing several times before, (including one incident about 6-7 years ago where he was unconscious for over a week and a doctor told me he would either never wake up or would be in a home the rest of his life if he did only for Dad to wake up that day and have a complete recovery). Steve assured me that it looked a lot more serious this time. Over the next week or so I got daily updates and it seemed to only be getting worse. There was no reason to be optomistic, and I was not, but there was a small part of me that thought "maybe" and I prayed daily that he would somehow beat the odds. One day before my birthday my brother and sister received the devastating news that they had lost their own father. I was sick for them and it only magnified my own fears. I was sure that I would lose my father on my birthday, especially as the day before the doctors got the latest test results showing no brain activity, removed his respirator and advised Steve and I that it was a matter of time. As it turned out, he was a bit stronger than the doctors thought and he made it through that day and the next. The morning after my birthday, as I prepared to leave for work, my phone rang. I knew by the ring that it was Steve and I knew from the time that this was not going to simply be an update. I answered the phone and Steve told me. My father had passed away. Peacefully and after a long period of sickness, but far, far too early.

I cannot describe exactly how I feel. Two weeks have passed. The funeral was touching and beautiful...and painful and cold. Friends and family consoled me and I put up as brave a front as I could. I feel somewhat better in the sense that I know it is going to be okay, but I keep coming back to the first thought I had when I heard the news. Why could he not have stayed around long enough to meet Gigi? He loved life and he loved all children. He adored my nieces and nephews and for the last seven years of his life he had a love affair with his "Little Mo," Steve's daughter. I know he would have just loved Gigi and I know she would have loved her "Papa Jerry." I will be fine and I know everyone has their time, but I am going to miss him terribly. We were not always the closest and sometimes there would be ridiculously long periods between calls, but he was always, and remains, the biggest man in the world to me and I loved him.

I believe in an ironic Universe. That is why I am absolutely sure now that China will refer through our date this month. It cannot take longer than the end of next month, but I am sure that we will now get our referral just a few weeks too late for my Dad to at least have known we were finally getting her and to see her photo. I hope that I can touch my daughter's heart the way he touched mine. I hope he can look down and see her when she comes and is just as proud of her as I know I will be. I am thrilled that we are so close, and that I will finally have something great happen this year, but it will be touched with the sadness of knowing that he will not be there. That is something I will get past, but will never understand.