…..a shard of information adventitiously came my way last evening, and although it definitely wasn’t information I welcomed or could readily embrace, I nonetheless had to acknowledge its veracity and take steps to appropriately address it.  The receipt of information oftentimes works in this fashion, that is, it is frequently malodorous and undesirable in nature, but our sentiments regarding said information does not alter the underlying scaffolding and superstructure on which reality is constructed one iota, and we henceforth have to accept any “new” data at face value and do our utmost to be flexible and hastily rearrange our lives to accommodate constantly changing circumstances.  Absolute rigidity in the guise of “principle” is unacceptable; it amounts to a death sentence in the arena of sound judgment…..

…..I looked backwards as I stood at the threshold of the daycare lady’s front door and my three-month-old daughter Sam was staring back at me with large, sorrowful eyes, equally alarmed and incredulous that I would be leaving her alone in a strange place with a friendly, yet altogether unfamiliar, lady.  And right then she began crying—just bawling her lungs out hysterically at an unearthly volume.  I felt awful…..traumatized…..distraught…..abusive.  Truth is, I couldn’t have felt worse than I did at that exact moment and still been drawing breaths and classifying myself as a feeling homo sapiens.  My heart was being ruthlessly ripped out of my chest and stomped on savagely by the purveyors of fate, and they were evidently having loads of fun doing so. This was Carla’s first day back at work following a three-month maternity leave, and thus it was Sam’s first morning experiencing out-of-home daycare and I was the party responsible for getting her there safely. I blinked reflexively.  Shiiiiitttt……..this horrible nightmare can’t honestly be happening to me, can it?!?!  Is this for real?!?!  I SWEAR THAT I AM INNOCENT OF ANY WRONGDOING, AND YET THAT FACT DOESN’T SEEM TO MATTER ONE STINKIN’ BIT!!!!!  The day obviously wasn’t getting off to a good start, and I was feeling even more dispirited than before if that was in fact possible.  At a nerve-wracking time such as this you just recite all the predictable appropriate platitudes to yourself in an attempt to feel better:  That you have to go out to earn sufficient money in order to properly support your dependents, including Sam; that she has to be exposed to the Big Bad World by herself some day—so why not now??; that the person you are leaving her with for the upcoming day is compassionate and congenial and Sam therefore was in wonderful hands; that learning to properly socialize is critical to a child’s emotional development and at this place Sam will be surrounded by a phalanx of other young people roughly her age; that eventually she’ll be going off to official pre-school classes followed by kindergarten so she might as well get used to spending days by herself outside our cozy abode now; that…..that…..that…..that……  And yet none of those eminently logical reasons made a shred of difference as I stood there in that infernal doorway seeing my tiny, beloved daughter staring back at me uncomprehendingly like a caged animal while hearing her shrieking away hysterically at the top of her lungs.  The only thing I could think of—and which weighed on my mind right then with the mass of a blacksmith’s anvil—was that I was both the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the world as well as far and away the worst father—Take your pick, Reader!—and it was the last thought that crossed my mind as I tearfully peered backwards one last time at my woefully distraught daughter before heading off to my job at the Mayo Clinic.  Not surprisingly, the day that ensued measured thirty six hours in length and turned out to be the longest and most introspective day of my life…..

…..and another day came, and another day went…..and another day came, and another day went……and another day came, and another day went…..and another day came and another day went…..and after a while they all started to resemble one another, irrespective of the weather outside and the varied menagerie of individuals who populated these days and whatever random worldly events transpired within them, and in the grandiose scheme of things time flowed along in a slow, methodical pattern which defied the very idea that entropy could be the basic transcendent stricture governing all things on Earth.  If chaos was the final definitive answer, then why did homogeneity seem to rule with an iron hand over the present?…..

Okay, you’ve been assigning blame loudly and scornfully for the past ten minutes—That part we’re absolutely clear on now!—but next let’s move on to the more difficult aspect informing this problem we’re jointly facing:  Finding a workable solution for the damned thing!  And all of your cursing, name-calling, and demonstrative finger-pointing isn’t moving us one scintilla closer to this desired end.  Can’t you see that?!   Is that point too difficult for you to fathom?!   Are you some sort of illiterate dumbkupf?!  Ranting may feel good inside your viscera for all of thirty minutes, but when you’re done throwing your childish tantrum we still have a gargantuan problem sitting before us and all the bitching and blaming in the world ain’t gonna alter that reality or move the needle in a rightward direction one iota.  So let’s roll up our sleeves, call a temporary truce, and get to work this second rather than hollering back and forth at one another not unlike two cartoonishly-muscled, steroid-enraged contestants immediately prior to a fake professional wrestling match.  Nothing has changed, let alone improved, as a result of this non-stop bickering, but the problem that precipitated our brouhaha is a sneaky cocksucker at heart and just grew a trifle larger and more intractable while we’ve been sitting here arguing back and forth like mortal enemies instead of mutually respectful siblings!  Peace already—Okay?!?!—so we can join forces to defeat this common foe!!

Note: The following paragraphs are excerpted from the book “The Hardest Life I Could Ever Love”, a chronicle of Mary Blahnik’s life edited by Fred Blahnik

…..A week before Thanksgiving, I received a telephone call from Sister Kenny Institute with the thrilling news that Dad could return home.  I cried crocodile tears of unadulterated joy after receiving that personally historic message. 

Mrs. Race Crane drove me to Minneapolis the following day.  When I first looked at Dad, I was shocked and felt my earlier exuberance hastily evaporate; this man did not appear to be in any physical shape for returning to normal family living!!! 

But since space was at an alarming premium at Sister Kenny Institute that autumn, every patient was being discharged as early as possible to make room for the many others languishing on the institution’s long polio waiting list.  So despite my skepticism and grave misgivings, Dad rode home with Mrs. Crane and me that gloomy November day.  

Dad’s happiness to return home was heartbreakingly evident as soon as Mrs. Crane turned into our long rural driveway; he gave each of our children passionate bearhugs the minute he stepped out of the Crane car, nearly squeezing leviathan smiles from their faces in the process.  But in his weakened, de-conditioned state it was difficult for my husband to move around freely, and in fact he never left our house until late March of 1951. Before leaving Minneapolis, I had been studiously instructed by Sister Kenny staff on the rigorous physical therapy Dad would need to perform each and every day at home in order to optimize his health.

          Just a week later—on Thanksgiving Day, 1950—“Old Man Winter” blew into southeastern Minnesota with pure vengeance.  As the day slowly progressed, weather conditions which originally started out as benignly snowy rapidly deteriorated into a genuine howling blizzard, and my attention became wholly focused outdoors on some requisite, last-minute winter preparations that needed to be accomplished.  I believe we had fried chicken for our Thanksgiving feast that year, as I had succeeded in nabbing and subsequently chopping the head off one unlucky fowl.  But all I can really recollect anymore about that memorable day is the unbelievable help I received from our older children—especially precocious little Mary Agnes as she slaved away in the kitchen not unlike a crazed lunatic.

Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible.   —Edward Teller

Dad was finally safely home with his family, it was Thanksgiving Day, our children were thrilled to have their patriarch back with them, and we….we…..we were all just extraordinarily thankful fortune had thought to smile on our penniless family for this  grand occasion.  After witnessing firsthand the depressing permanence of those carefully-ordered rows of “Iron Lungs” up at Kenny Institute with desperate people imprisoned inside them for a near eternity, things could have easily turned out infinitely worse for the dear, gentle man we called husband and father.

…..when she unexpectedly left him standing all alone on the altar like a flagpole in the center of a sprawling suburban mall, she at least was sufficiently generous to leave behind a token present in his honor as well:  A gaping hole in his soul that no amount of mortar or putty or spackling could ever hope to repair or gloss over.  He became an emotional cripple following her surprise disappearance, albeit through no fault of his own.  To wit:  How can you ever hope to function as a normal human being once your soul has been publicly ripped to shreds and subsequently left lying exposed for all the vultures of the world to peck on and fight over?  Yes, indeed, he was truly a pitiful creature in the aftermath of being jilted on the altar, and his pursuant life—or what posed for a life, that is—was pitiful and sickeningly brittle too.  About the only thing he could think of doing after she abruptly abandoned him at the front of a church packed full of eager celebrants was to begin counting down the days until his forgettable sojourn on the surface of this planet would prayerfully come to an end.  Just hurry up and wait. Accelerate the timetable, maybe, which was something that was easily within his physical capabilities?  Nah.  Nah……nah…..nah, only crazy, unhinged lunatics would do anything that extreme.  He wasn’t to that desperate juncture yet, although he filed a mental note that he couldn’t absolutely rule out this nuclear option in the future if his life continued on its downward spiral…..

Save for the future, but whenever in doubt prioritize today first and foremost in every instance, especially when it comes to the allocation of your finite resources. Translated:  Spend some or all of your money today if you REALLY want to buy something or do something or go somewhere special, because tomorrow and next week and next year are all crapshoots with no guarantee of ever reaching fruition.  They are shadowy intangibles in a world teeming with tangibles, nonpalpable wraiths luring us with impossible promises and then racing away from us at the last possible second.  You have today for sure, but anything beyond that is pure speculation.  Thus don’t hesitate to spend money on yourself at present even if you might host legitimate reservations concerning the purchase—reservations which typically spawn reflexive pangs of guilt—since it is unfailingly better to wager on a sure thing, namely the moment at hand, as opposed to pooling your earnings and casting your lot with an extreme longshot, namely the future.  Myriad accident victims and cancer victims and war victims and pandemic victims and victims of any color or stripe can and will confirm this fact; they disappeared from the pantheon of humanity with little pageantry and oftentimes nil advance warning through no fault of their own and consequently were never sufficiently fortunate to experience the fruits of their careful, meticulous planning.

Without exception, do what ya say you’re gonna do.  If you talk the talk ya gotta walk the walk.  Understand now, ya don’t havta do any more than that, but NEVER EVER do less!  When you personally stand in front of the high jump pit, eye the apparatus, approximate your leg strength versus the tug of gravity, and climactically set the bar on its standards, that is the height you are subsequently required to clear; ya can’t and shouldn’t blame someone else at a later date for creating unrealistic expectations.  That is so fuckin’ lame! Quite simply, be true to your word—ALWAYS!!!  That’s what makes a good person; that’s what separates paladins from assholes; that defines character; that’s what, over time, makes reputations platinum as opposed to stinky and transforms casual acquaintances into genuine lifelong friendships.

…..”torn between two lovers, feelin’ like a fool, loving you both is breaking all the rules…..”   That classic ballad from the 1970s, sung by brunette songstress Mary McGregor, kept playing  through her mind as she contemplated her future and commiserated over the atrocious  bind she found herself embroiled within.  What was she to do anyway?!  Was there some way out of this shambolic mess?  As the undisputed fulcrum to this love triangle, could she somehow succeed in making three people happy when her best instincts kept telling her the real number was more apt to be zero?  Some might call her present predicament an embarrassment of riches; she was well aware of that and could hardly take issue with the frank assessment.  I mean, put yourself in her shoes for a second and just imagine…..being loved simultaneously and madly by two exquisite, yet diametrically opposite, suitors!!  Desirability squared!!!  Nirvana on planet Earth, right?!  The envy of every woman on the planet!  Yet she nonetheless struggled to find any sort of  silver lining in this weird cataclysm.  Rather, she could much sooner foresee the worst case scenario developing and developing breathtakingly quickly too, and that would be that instead of winding up with TWO exemplary lovers who she could call her own and count on for creditable companionship, she would ultimately end up with neither and find herself back at square one—lonely as before, a little bit older and more tarnished now, and squarely on the road to spinsterhood…..

…..she had to maintain an unwavering faith in God; that was the ONLY thing that would sustain her now.  There was no other method to deal with this excruciating situation she faced, no other way forward, no magical elixir she could ingest to guarantee a favorable outcome.  Insurance companies—those apex predators sitting atop every societal food chain—certainly couldn’t be looked to or depended upon in a dire  instance such as this. Nor could so-called friends or family—all subject to the foibles, frailties, failures, and ultimate fallibility indigenous to the human species.   No, God was her best and only remaining hope and she therefore planned to place her life in His hands while praying a shitload every night at bedtime and tripling down on her long-time, albeit when convenient, faith.  Iffy??  Well, of course it is, but if there are no viable alternatives available to her, what other choices does she have?  Don’t bother replying to this rhetorical query—the correct answer is a grand total of zero.  Blind faith is iffy, but so too is the future in general.  Ditto assuming anything in life and taking mortality for granted.  Putting your life solely in God’s hands is inveterately a risky proposition given the complete absence of any objective referencing, but when the future is unimaginably bleak and there is but one bullet left unused in the pistol you hold in your hand, the decision on how to proceed is actually relatively easy and already made for you.  Soldiers on the front lines and passengers on hijacked airplanes will enthusiastically endorse this fact, as will terminally ill patients…..