Did YOU get any presence?

We’ll see…

First, a fun fact:

Teachers celebrate two “New Year’s Days” every year; the one that begins every January first, the second that begins when they meet their new class of students every Fall. This year is the first year, after 52 straight years (as student and educator), where I’m “celebrating” only one—and for me, ironically, it is the one that was, of the two, the least meaningful. The start of the new school year was the one, true, New Year’s Day for me because it was the start of another incredible opportunity to play a part in the lives of kids. The older I got as a teacher, and especially after I became a dad myself, the more I realized the importance of September 1 versus the arbitrariness of January 1. There really is nothing special about January 1st other than we open up a new calendar (unless you use the school’s calendar in your home…which kind of proves my point!), oh, and we get to add another digit to the year. Other than that, life kind of “just goes on” pretty much exactly like it was on December 31, or September 28 (my birthday), or September 12 (Dad’s birthday), or July 4 (when Dad converted our family home into Club Med Lenseigne). But on September 1st???

Yeah, there was everything special for me about the start of a new school year. That is when every teacher worth the profession’s name assumes the heavy burden of caretaker, mentor, “elder,” guide, coach, and sage to a new group of children who began their first day of school with wide-eyed wonder, nervous anticipation (‘I just want my teacher to like me;” “I just want to love my teacher!”), and thrill at the opportunity to see old, and meet new, friends. So, yeah.

Happy January 2023 y’all.

How is this next calendar year going to be any different from your years’ past?

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The thing that REALLY matters:

Dad had a relatively pleasant Holiday season. As he’s aged, and become more infirm, and can now catch blurred glimpses of a fuzzy finish line somewhere in the near distant future, family, for Dad, has become the most important thing in his life. Because of our distance away from Yakima, Kristin (a West Seattle and Mill Creek girl) and I, over our years of marriage and family life, have evolved our own way of celebrating with each of our families. This included when and where we “celebrated” both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and midnight of December 31st. For Dad though, THIS year was the first year, I think in his entire 84 years, when he was no longer in the Yakima valley. Which meant, as well, he was not in his usual familial, let alone geographical, environment. And starting at Thanksgiving, it was hitting home for Dad…hitting hard.

In one way, this was endearing to me because I never really knew before (or appreciated, or tuned into the fact) that the holidays meant something deep for Dad. As November approached, which meant October when he would say on more than one occasion: “So next week is Thanksgiving already—who’s coming over?” (“No Dad, today is only October 12th.”), Dad’s sole focus was family—just as it should be during Thanksgiving.

Now, I think this is how many, if not most, of us evolve towards as we age and become “the elderly” ourselves. We hear this of our olders all the time—“the only thing that matters to me now is my family.” And even WE say it too—and of course we mean it. But how much tension did you experience to buy stuff for others at the expense of looking more forward to simply being with them instead of watching their reaction to the stuff you bought for them? So, along with the sentiment of the importance of family, a true Elder then adds: “And so don’t wait until you become elderly to recognize, honor, and live that sentiment. Live it now. MAKE them, not things, the most important thing! Create and make the experiences of simply being together their priceless longings. And then teach that to our kids!”

And then on Christmas Day this past year, as Dad and I were alone downstairs to start his day and as I was trying to find the football game on TV, Dad began to cry. It was hitting him hard that Christmas this year was very different from ALL his year’s past and he was realizing he wasn’t going to see all the faces he had been seeing during all his Christmases previous. He wasn’t going to see his full family. In more ways than one, he’s in a different time and a different world now. And he was mourning a time and place gone by—a bittersweet nostalgia that was hitting him for the first time at 9am on Christmas morning in a quiet moment downstairs with me. His emotions ran deep because he was quick to say he loves us and what we are doing for him here in our home in Lake Stevens, but that he was also confused in wondering why “no one else” is going to come over—meaning “You mean I’m really not going to see my family today? Did they forget about me? Don’t they care?” (NOT his actual words, this was just my feeling of how he was feeling in that moment). Being family, and loving him, and understanding fully, my heart broke for him. But I got it. I get it.

Have I ever mentioned dementia sucks?

Of course I have. But it also surfaces some incredibly poignant moments that lay bare one man’s deep and raw emotions, exposing them at levels that that man’s son, his current caregiver, NEVER has seen before.

Such is the grace of dementia.

The exchanging of gifts was irrelevant for me this year—as I was thinking about Dad, and feeling the strong tension of the dominate commercialized and consumeristic-side of Christmas to buy presents (which for me has made it, perhaps now, my least favorite holiday), and as Christmas day itself was approaching, I realized there was nothing I could buy Dad that would add anything to his life. In fact, anything that could have been bought, as a Christmas gift, ran the risk of being superfluous since all of his needs are being met through his daily living with us. Besides, what can be additive, what does have meaning, what “matters most,” isn’t something that can be bought from Amazon or from a gift card.

With every day we get to wake up and share love with someone—which can simply mean being present side-by-side, in a quiet moment together downstairs, as we try to find a football game on TV, and then welcoming tears—well, no purchased gift comes remotely close in comparison to the impact presence has on the human heart. And, as Dad is showing me, the human heart is the ONLY thing that matters. I have forgotten all the “things” Dad (read mom!) ever bought me for Christmas. But I’ll never forget that quiet stolen moment alone, together, when Dad shared another vulnerable side of himself. He shared with me…his heart.

The older I get, the harder it will be for anyone to convince me that “things” appreciate with value over time. If there is anything I’ve learned so far from these experiences with Dad, it’s that “things” don’t matter. Things change, and AS we get older, as witnessed in Dad’s own life, we lose things, we get rid of them, we let them go—because they just don’t matter. Dad, right now, doesn’t have a lot of “stuff.” Anything from his past that might have been valued, any “thing,” no longer exists in his life. Outside of his wedding ring to mom, that he still wears on the fourth finger of his left hand, there really is no thing to which Dad attaches any significant meaning. The only thing now that will appreciate in value, resides solely within me, or within anyone who has spent time with Dad and is awake to this truism of life. And THOSE things, those memories of love and relationship and connection, do appreciate with time—they are the only things of merit that do. And once Dad dies, and can no longer add to those memories, well…than all the existing memories become priceless.

Presence surpasses presents.

In a coincidental quirk of timing, January 1, 2023 did mark a milestone of sorts for us. At 12 noon on that day, we marked (well, I marked) the fact that Dad had been living with us for 182.5 days—exactly one half of a year.

So in an ironic twist, come July 4, 2023, perhaps I get to celebrate two “New Years” again—when we acknowledge, and indeed celebrate, the beginning of a new year as our newly reconfigured family: one with Dad fully present in our home and in our lives.

And celebrate we will.

In 1977, Kenny Loggins was in New York City recording his first studio album as a solo songwriter away from his long time writing collaborator Jim Messina, and he was getting homesick. So he had an idea to write a song about family and being away from home—and missing it all. It happened to be the holiday season at that time which always and naturally seems to amplify the emotions of separation and longing when one is away from family.

Sound familiar?

Loggins says that the song was not meant to be a “Christmas” song but rather a song about being homesick since he was feeling it strongly at that time in New York; and the phrase “Celebrate Me Home” was a place-holder phrase meant to sustain the melody while he wrote the rest of the song trusting that “the words” he needed for that part of the song would eventually come (in a similar manner, Paul McCartney used the place-holder words “Scrambled Eggs” to sustain melody while trusting that “the words” he needed for that part of his song would come when he wrote… “Yesterday.”). When Loggins sang a demo to his producer, the producer reportedly said “THAT’s IT! That’s the phrase you need and in fact should be the song’s title!” And the rest, as they say….

Loggins could have written the song about my Dad in this time of twilight in his life—so this song held special meaning this past holiday.

T plus 187 days…and counting. With priceless presence every moment. For the record, Dad enjoyed three glorious days in Yakima, with Trevor and Kendra, and most all of Yakima’s “Wally Lenseigne clan.” Dad was giddy in anticipation of this time—and more memories were exchanged by all as he was celebrated home. The one emotion I felt from Dad later in the evening, when he resumed living with us on Jan. 1, was contentment.

And it was quite lovely.

Figure THAT for a moment—contentment, for a man that no longer values things, came in the form of simply being with family; a family that he loves and is very proud of…

…and from reconnection through presence.

Take THAT to heart! And whether it be in Lake Stevens, or Selah, or West Yakima, or Terrace Heights, or Moxee, well…Dad’s always home now.

And we celebrate that too.