A photo from Dad’s 80th birthday party earlier this year

I had visited earlier in the evening, and the visit began with security stopping me from rounding to corner to my dad’s room as they were moving one of the residents out of the hospice after they had died. The guard commented that it was four of them that day, but wouldn’t tell me who it was or what room number they were from. I was scared it was my dad - he had already stayed with us much longer than the doctors suggested a couple of weeks ago when this journey began.

When I could finally move on, I found my dad asleep in his room. I felt relief to see him still there. Unbidden, I remembered Dylan Thomas’s poem, Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I had the strongest desire to both cheer for him and to weep. I felt the impact of the thought behind the line of “Curse, Bless me now…” as I didn’t want him to stay and suffer but I was still blessed by his continued fight. Right or wrong, I needed to see him wanting to stay here a bit longer, no matter how prepared I knew him to be to go through that door. There should be some sort of barrier there, some sort of guardrail - or at least speedbump - between life and death. I know we all will cross that line, but I needed to see the resistance there.

He couldn’t speak tonight, and I realized on my drive home, I had already heard him say my name for the last time yesterday. While there, I visited with my step-mom and got her something to eat. I held my dad’s hand and left a long and lingering kiss on his warm forehead before leaving - promising to be back again at the same time tomorrow as I had been doing. I told him I loved him.

Last week he had all of his children by his bedside at the hospice, and we all discussed his plans for his funeral. He requested his friends’ bluegrass band to play, and said he wanted them to play, I’ll Fly away. My dad turned 80 years old earlier this year and the band played for that occasion as well. When they were finished, my dad raised his hand and asked them to sing that song then as well. I think we all felt some foreshadowing at the time, but he was having fun and the party was a joy, and really, it’s a very happy song.

I’ll Fly Away

Some bright morning when this life is over
I’ll fly away
To that home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll fly away

I’ll fly away oh glory
I’ll fly away (in the morning)
When I die hallelujah by and by
I’ll fly away

When the shadows of this life have gone
I’ll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I’ll fly
I’ll fly away

Oh how glad and happy when we meet
I’ll fly away
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I’ll fly away

Just a few more weary days and then
I’ll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I’ll fly away

My dad has now flown away. I am grateful for all that he taught me. Even tonight, no longer able to speak, he was teaching me about how precious life is. And he teaches me still as I listen to the song now on my MP3 player. I feel sorrow and loss, but I also feel gratitude and joy as well. It’s a strange mix, and I m grateful to have the chance to share this with y’all.

I love you, dad. Fly high and free to that land where joys will never end.

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This was announced yesterday to the company, and it identified me as the leader of the competition. In addition to several e-mails of congratulations, I also received an e-mail from one of our our accounting groups wanting to meet me and hear about how I did it. I was touched and flattered, and we had a good visit.

This morning, I found the following e-mail when I arrived at the office:

Good morning…

I hope you don’t mind me contacting you, but your story really struck a chord with me yesterday when you came over to meet us. I am very interested in hearing more about your strategies, exercise regime, and such. I have been struggling with my weight for about 3 years now; trying to bring it down. I have been overweight for the last 11 years. I am not the heaviest I have ever been right now, and for that I am grateful.

Any suggestions you might have, words of wisdom, insight, etc. would not only be welcome, but greatly appreciated. Also, I would like to extend an offer of moral support. I realize you don’t know me, but it never hurts to reach out to people and let them know the support is there if they need it. I hope I am not out of line or make you uncomfortable by contacting you about this. If so, please do not hesitate to tell me. Thanks!

I thought about it for a while, and chuckled at the irony of my becoming an informal weight-loss coach, and wrote this reply during lunch.

I don’t mind at all, in fact I am both flattered and more motivated to keep going for myself as a result of the visit to y’all and your encouragement and request for support.

I could probably fill pages of what I have learned – whether that is from Weight Watchers, Overeater Anonymous, or Atkins over the years; so instead how about if I just help a little at a time, and you can ask for more, ask questions, say thanks which will encourage me to send more, or just say no thanks.

The first place I guess I should start is with what I call the “White Bread Warning”. It’s not an Atkins thing, believe it or not, it’s a consulting maxim I have used for years. In short, the warning states, “If you use the same recipe, you will get the same bread.”

Another way I have heard it said is, “If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting.” And also there is the classic definition of insanity being to keep doing the same thing and hoping for different results.

Notice that none of this has anything to do with making a decision to change; it only addresses things that do change. A favorite parable of mine tells about the three frogs sitting on a lily pad on a hot summer day. One frog is so very hot and thinks about the cool water under the lily pad and decides to jump in and cool off. So how many frogs are left on the lily pad? The answer is three. The decision to jump in is not the same thing as jumping in.

This was big for me because I make lots of grandiose decisions and then don’t follow through. These lessons teach me that my decision means little – what I do is what matters.

Now when changing recipes, the key there is experience. What do I do that I know causes me to gain weight? I need to stop those recipes. What do I know from experience will help me lose weight? I need to use these recipes. It may not be easy, but it really is that simple.

There, that seems like a good bite-sized chunk of wisdom and experience, and it helps me to review it. What do you think?

Her reply said that she was putting my words on her refrigerator door. And I felt that if my words were good enough for that place of honor, then they might be good enough to share with you as well. It also makes me want to know what I can learn from my visitors here as well.

What do you do to help make changes in behavior that go beyond just having the intention to change?
Should I share more of my thoughts on this in the futurre on here?

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After the height of the storm - about the time I had taken this photo - the power had gone off shortly before and the waiting began. But I was in touch with so many people that night, i was able to sit in my living room in the dark with my computer and phone and candles and participate in a conversation about the storm - we shared stories of when we lost power, the noises we heard as trees broke and crashed, the fears as one of us thought their house was on fire. We had each other through the storm.

A couple of situations underscored this comforting community for me. I had been following on Twitter the National Hurricane Center’s @HurricaneIke account and they were correcting news errors about tornadoes and sending links to show radar imagery. They even shared the way the downtown buildings were creating blind spots and false indications of tornadoes. A calm voice of reason and knowledge. But turning on the radio, I found other voices that were not as calm, callers that were alone and frightened and isolated from one another except for the radio, all in the dark as I was, but without the reassuring chatter of friends and experts as we on Twitter had with one another.

The next couple of days saw a near-collapse of the cellular voice and data networks in the area. Calls may or may not work at any given time, but the SMS-based technology of Twitter kept us still in touch. We knew who had power and who didn’t. People with power were opening their doors to the people without, and we knew the condition of the city as people checked in with their zip codes. (This also lead to someone messaging me on twitter to check on their brother as they realized I lived in the same neighborhood.) Messages got out about who needed help, and what people were doing to pass the time in the heat of a city with no air conditioning. Tips were given on how to check for power, or where generators could be found, and what sort of nails would best hold tarps in place.

The final way this community worked for me was when I started searching those messages on Twitter hashtagged with #ike, so that they could be viewed as a whole. I got the idea to search for my zipcode as well, and found others that lived near me that had also shared their stories and community during and after the storm. I added them to the list of people I follow on twitter and my own community on-line grew to include the people in my geographic community.

I even found the way to express some of my own feelings from the tweet of a neighbor:

HughesJW: Today I’ll try to take a step out of crisis mode and begin finding a new normal. Still grieving loss of old normal, #Ike.

The final irony is that this new community on Twitter, the same internet service that has had so many availability problems, turned out to provide the stability that we needed to get through this storm together.

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I went to the gym tonight to hire a personal trainer. It’s been a to-do item for a long time and today seemed like a good day since I am starting a weight-loss competition at the office today. The salesman and I sit across from one another and we haggle the price on a solution that I could not afford this month or next month or any of the months for the one year term to which I was agreeing. I kept thinking how foolish this was. I am trying to save money - not pay more than my car payment for someone to make sure I show up and work out.

So I finally stepped back while he tried to get his manager to accept my offer and asked myself why I was going to do this. And I screamed my answer back to myself, “Because I am Furious!”

I already was aware that I was angry. I noticed it on the drive and there were a number of reasons for it - not the least of which was the need for joining this weight-loss competition. But what made me stop and think was the fact that there was such a sense of entitlement attached to that answer. Like doing something that will cause me a year of financial stress and potentially damage me and my family is a reasonable thing to do just because I am angry.

It was just so matter-of-fact. I am angry, therefore I will go do something stupid and risk harming myself because that is a good and right solution. And it felt like an argument that had worked many times before….

I did not buy anything. I took a price sheet and a card and left. And I thought about healthier solutions. Better alternatives. And so instead, I went to the local massage place (where I had a credit for a massage) and found I was early enough to get a one-hour massage. I even had enough time to sit in their “relaxation room” and just feel my feelings and breathe and start to let it all go before the massage.

This was a victory for me. I don’t always see my way out of my anger - usually I just get lost in it. But tonight I chose a healthier path. And so in following the wisdom of “Celebrate every Victory” I share this with you all….

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“You were being rigid and inflexible.”





I didn’t like how that was going, so I changed subjects and discussed an issue about my daughter, and what might have caused things to blow up like the did. Again she saw an answer.

“You were being Rigid and Inflexible.”

Damn it, I think she might be right. And that isn’t a good thing. It used to be how I lived - this rigid inflexibility about what I planned, what I expected or what I wanted. But I also know of times where instead of being so rigid, i was flexible and able to adapt to circumstances. So what was putting me back into a rigid shell?

As i wandered, I looked on the ‘Net and found this quote in an essay by John Cleese (of Monty Python fame):

We all operate in two contrasting modes, which we call open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned mode that we find ourselves in so much of the time. When is this closed, tight, solemn mode helpful?

Only when action is urgently required, it seems. If you want a decision in two minutes, don’t open up the discussion. If you’re leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies. When you charge the enemy machine-gun post, don’t waste energy trying to see the funny side of it. Act, narrow-mindedly.

But the moment the action is over, we need to return to the open mode; to open our minds again to all the feedback from our action that enables us to tell whether the action has been successful, or whether further action is needed to improve on what we’ve done. In other words, we must return to the open mode, because in that mode we are most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent.

And this fit my situation well. I was, metaphorically speaking, charging multiple machine gun posts in the internal urgency and importance of the work to be done. “It had to be done,” I remembered saying again and again when people wanted to quit.

I was armored in a rigid suit like Iron Man and doing battle.

Sometimes I really like the suit, and I like the narrow-minded approach of, “there is only the next mission, and the mission after that.” But the suit also isolates me from others I care about.

So how then to live outside the armor? I started doing two things. I started just taking the time to meditate and be still and remind myself there is no battle needing to be fought at that moment. I also sought laughter - to see the humor in my own actions, and also to rent some comedies to watch with my son.

How did I take off the armor?

I started playing again.

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