IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

I just found out that one of my favorite television shows has been cancelled. I knew it had to happen one day but I am still dismayed. The show has given me many hours of great entertainment and in retrospect, it even created one troubling period in my life where I learned an invaluable lesson.

Five years ago, a friend of mine got me hooked on the show Numb3ers. When he first told me about the series, I thought the plot seemed pretty laughable but I promised to watch a couple of episodes. The premise of the show is simple; an FBI agent named Don has a brother named Charlie who is a math genius. Charlie is a consultant to the FBI and through mathematical theorems, he helps Don solve cases.

It sounded pretty far-fetched to me at first but after watching a few episodes, I was captivated. Charlie’s premise was that arbitrary activity is part of a larger, more complex design. By adding variables to an equation, the cases can be cracked by deciphering the underlying pattern of behavior. As I became more engrossed in Numb3ers, I started creating my own mathematical theorems to see if the random aspects on my life were actually random.

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Moving is for mad men. You spend hours storing, packing, boxing and purging and once the move is complete, you spend hours trying to figure out what the chicken scratch on the side of each box actually means. It’s pure insanity.

On our third night in the new house, we just had to quit unpacking. We brought a heat wave with us and after two and a half days of temperatures in triple digits, a night off to relax in the pool was just what the doctor ordered.

Uncle Walt had been entertaining our kids so we could unpack and probably needed a night off as well. So Stephanie and I left a billion half empty boxes strewn around the house and walked up to the pool as sweat rolled down our faces. I wasted no time as I kicked off my shoes, threw my shirt into a vacant chair and jumped into the pool. As I came up for a breath of fresh air, my body temperature instantly dropped thirty degrees. It was invigorating.

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As I was driving along I-95 last month, I saw a clean-up crew dressed in orange jump suits working off their community service by collecting trash along the highway. As I drove past the gaggle of orange jumpsuits, I locked eyes with a young man in his late teens who had looked up to stare at the cars driving past him and something in his vacant glare struck me to the core…

As a sophomore in high school, my life changed drastically and I found myself at a crossroads. My mother had passed away and as the final months of the school year were ending, I had to prepare to move to a new town. Prep School and I were like oil and water, so my lack of friends was evident as I tried diligently to change my circumstances. So I started hanging out with a new group of friends.

Things were going well at first. I stepped away from my unique style in order to become one of the crowd and for the first time, I was finally playing by the rules. It was uncharted waters for me but it gave me a place to feel grounded while I juggled my changing landscape. And, I finally had a core set of friends.

One night, my friends and I decided to go on a pizza run. Ordering food and having it delivered at our school was against the rules. So the idea of ordering pizza brought along a new set of challenges. Pizza runs had become missions. If we got caught, we would be punished, we would lose money and there was always a lot of ridicule at the hands of our friends. A successful pizza run meant an after hours party in the dorm.

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A couple of weeks ago, I closed the final page on the sixth book of my life. I know people call each significant segment of our lives a chapter but I believe a “year in the life” equates to a chapter in our personal history. Three hundred sixty-five days covers a lot of love, drama, highs, lows, laughs and memorable moments to fill out one whole chapter. Significant periods of time lumped together is the equivalent of a good book.

My latest book encompassed a period of fourteen years; almost to the day! The impact of the past fourteen years won’t truly be known for years to come but I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to reflect upon the time I spent in Bean Town. I don’t believe in goodbyes because we will see each other again, but I do want to take a moment to pay tribute to the people I met and the accomplishments I have attained over the past fourteen years.

I married my wife in Chapter One and to be completely honest, Stephanie is more amazing today than she was fourteen years ago. And every day I know her, I love her more than the day before. I am blessed to call her my wife. And although I don’t know how many more books our life will encompass, I eagerly look forward to many more amazing stories, laughs and blessings over the next fifty (or more) years.

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It was a show about science versus faith. Good versus evil. Free will versus destiny. Redemption versus damnation. LOST packed all of this in a six year run that has left so many unanswered questions and personal interpretations about what happened on a remote island somewhere in the Pacific, that I believe the show will be watched again and again and talked about for years to come.

The irony is that LOST is the perfect metaphor for life. We may not be stranded on a remote island in the middle of nowhere trying to find a way home but how many of us can say that we have truly conquered the mysteries and meanings of our own lives? I know I can’t.

I am a man of faith. I believe I have done a lot more good in the world than harm. I believe everything happens for a reason and through the journey of my life, I find myself seeking redemption in my faith on a daily basis. And yet those everyday struggles still remain and with each new challenge I face, my belief in myself and my core values are tested.

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I could here the crack of the bat as I watched the ball whiz past third base; “foul!” On the next pitch, Josh rifled a single between the shortstop and the third baseman. His first at bat ever and he was on base with a single through the left side of the infield. I gave him the thumbs up sign while I was leaning against the chain link fence on the third base side of the field and he cracked a smile at me as he dug his foot into the dirt next to the bag.

Stephanie and Chloe joined us in the middle of the second inning. It was a sunny Mother’s Day morning but a frigid wind was whipping across the field. It sent chills up my spine but nothing would have kept us away from the field on Sunday. After all of the rain we have had, the first game of the season was finally upon us and Josh had a great game. I was proud of him.

When the game ended, we climbed into the car and quickly whisked Stephanie away to celebrate Mother’s Day. I held Stephanie’s hand while we walked through the Arnold Arboretum for Lilac Sunday. The wind had subsided and the sun was shining down as the fragrances of over four hundred types of Lilacs wafted through the air. I smiled as hundreds of strangers went about their day around us because I was content. I was exactly where I wanted to be with the people who matter the most in my life.

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Stephanie and I were sitting on the couch watching Parenthood on TiVo last week and in one of the scenes, the entire family had gotten together to spend a routine evening together. While the parents were in the kitchen washing the dishes, cleaning up and talking about a new boyfriend who had been invited to join them, Stephanie turned to me and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have regular family dinners like that?”

“We do, Stephanie,” I replied.

“No, Doug,” she said forlornly. “You know what I mean.”

“I do and we have them,” I said as the commercial break ended and the show started again.

Ever since Stephanie’s mother passed away, some of our family members have dispersed like dandelions in the wind. Kathy was the glue that kept those traditions alive and made sure routine dinners as well as holiday celebrations were the foundation for a cohesive family unit. Since her passing, life has scattered many of the family members to the four corners of the universe for one reason or another.

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When I woke up on Christmas morning and saw the box in the corner of our living room, I shot Stephanie a disapproving look. The present was the size and shape of a flat screen television and although we had discussed buying one on many occasions, we ultimately decided against it until the time was right. So as the presents were opened by the kids, I tried to ignore the gift in the corner that seemed to grow ominously larger by the minute.

Finally, Stephanie said, “I would like you to open my gift,” as she pointed toward the box I had been ignoring.

“Steph…”

“It’s not what you think it is! Open it.”

I walked across our living room as I made one last plea to open it later after the kids had gone to bed. I didn’t want them to get too excited just in case we had to return it a few days later. Stephanie rolled her eyes at me as she excitedly said, “Just open it!”

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As the house lights came down and darkened the theater before the second act began, a hush washed across the audience. As we sat in the silence, we heard delicate fingers dancing on the ivory keys as the hallowed white spotlight framed the cast of RENT against the backdrop of a darkened stage. As I visually grasped the context of the scene, the angelic choral began, “525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear, 525,600 minutes – how do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?”

The poignantly painted imagery enveloped me in the moment and the lyric sent chills down my spine. It was a provocative, rousing, infectious and yet, an eerily ironic moment in the annals of my life. As I was winding down the final minutes of another year of my existence and preparing to embark on yet another 525,600 minutes of my own, I had recently been deliberating the same question; how do I measure success?

Later on in the evening as I sat in my family room and counted down the minutes to midnight, I thought about the past year and again I found myself contemplating how I measured my own achievements. Is it my career? Is my bank account big enough? Do I have the perfect house? The perfect car? The perfect life? Have I finally become one of the “Joneses?” And whether or not I have, is that enough? Or is there more?

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As I fluttered my eyelids a few times while trying to wake up, I could hear my daughter had climbed into bed with us and was trying to be snuggly. I adjusted my eyes on the picture hanging on the wall, rubbed my right hand over my forehead and then through my hair as I rolled over to see my smiling four year-old staring at me.

“Good morning, Daddy!”

“Good morning, Chloe,” I mumbled as I stared exhaustedly at the ceiling. “What time is it?”

“6:45,” came a response from Stephanie who was still trying to pretend to be asleep on her side of the bed.

“Guess what, Chloe?”

“What?”

“I have a surprise for you today. Go see if you’re brother is awake.” And with that pronouncement, Chloe jumped off of the bed and ran into Josh’s room. As the door slammed full force against his bedroom wall with a loud thud, I turned to Stephanie and quipped, “Josh is up now.”

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