Category Archives: Family

The Long and the Short of It

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Posted by on in distraction issues, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Striving

May 10, 2021- As get ready for a road trip, there are always good things that happen and challenges that interfere with what I need to do, day to day. The dental check-up I had this morning shows that regular care has stemmed the decline that had plagued my poor mouth, up until ten years ago. Tomorrow, I will get my car serviced and expect that all will be well, given the regular care the Grey Galloper has had, these past five years.

That leaves the device on which I am writing this piece. There are some issues with Windows 10, specifically the recent tendency for the screen to jump about and show a menu, starting with emojis. I will need the laptop for Zoom calls and for this blog, during the journey, so a long delayed servicing will wait until I get back. In the meantime, patience and a light touch will get us through.

My overall health is good, and I anticipate fine results from a physical exam, on the first of June. Exercise and good wellness practices have gone a long way to keeping this aging frame relatively robust.

With that, in two days’ time, I will be away from this salubrious Home Base and headed towards the home of my childhood. It will be time for a fond farewell to the house where so many memories of my youth were created.

What Is Always Known

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Posted by on in collaborating, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 9, 2021- One thing about the mothers, and mother-figures, whom we honour today, is that there is nothing that escapes them, at least at the deepest level. My mother knows, even a continent away, that I am essentially doing better than I have in a long time. She knows that there are a few challenges I face and a few people, some far away, who want to take from me, without giving back. She knows that my siblings are also, essentially, in safe places. Most importantly, she knows that her decision to adjust her lifestyle is the right one.

Baha’u’llah teaches us to be fair to self and others. Mom was teaching us that same thing, when I was the eldest of five. We were never deprived and when, in her humanness, she did not do the right thing by one of us, she made amends ten-fold. The lesson Mother taught, of compassion, has been one of two abiding truths that I have incorporated into my being. The other is to temper that with not being the foil of con artists and those who take full advantage of others,.

So have I balanced my life, and will, as I told another group of people earlier this evening, focus on building group cooperation. It was our family working as a team that got us through downturns and the challenges of caring for those members of our family who suffered from disease. It is our family working as a team that will bring us to say farewell to our family home of sixty-six years and guarantee that the woman we’ve always known has our back will know that we always have hers.

Further Changes

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 8, 2021- I received a supportive message from the principal of the school to which I referred yesterday. There will be some discomfort, for some people, but the children will be safe.
In a few short days, my mother’s life will become more secure. I will be on the road, towards my childhood home, and will help with whatever needs to be done, for at least a week. This was not expected-at least not this month, but life does not compromise with want-only with need.

I received word, this evening, that her next door neighbour of 66 years is dying. He is in hospice- a man’s man, reduced to lying in a single bed. I can only hope that his extended family, his cousins and closest friends, can be with him. If he is still with us, when I get to Massachusetts, I will pay a visit and thank him for being a faithful friend of our family, like his parents were.

The next few days will see preparatory activities- a Mother’s Day call, a dental check-up, a car servicing, laundry and packing. There will be time, tomorrow, for a visit to a magical place: Montezuma Well. My Home Base will be secure, while I’m gone, and there will much to be done, when I get back .

School, though, will wait until Fall, or maybe Winter, as I honour marching orders, sent from a place unseen.

Real Deals

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

May 4, 2021- I spent the day with a group of people who ask nothing of me, other than that I help them learn, in as clear a manner as I can muster. They only want respect. They don’t pester me for money. They don’t demand political fealty. They don’t seek to blame others for their personal blunders. When wrongly accused, they speak up-honestly and, again, respectfully. They are a group of fourth-graders, with whom I have spent a fair amount of time, this academic year. When I arrived, a minute late, due to the luck of the draw with red lights, I was greeted with cheers, and a productive day with sentence building, graphing and the seven continents, ensued. These are not quiet, complacent people. They learn in small groups, embrace knowledge with relish and hold the teacher accountable for anything that is not presented clearly at first blush. Again, they do so in an atmosphere of mutual respect. They are not children of privilege-most families live rather simply and the children know Medicaid, recycled clothing and free/reduced-fee school meals, all too well. I have two other groups of people, who ask nothing of me except respect and learning assistance, with whom to meet, before heading back to the family among whom I grew up and learned what matters most in life. No begging hands, no loud political rants, no whining about being cheated- just showing respect and being respected.

The River Flows On

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Posted by on in Family, Personal goals, Personal Values, Striving

May 3, 2021- Many times in our lives, there is a welcoming lull-a flow of sameness that seems like it could go on forever. Some of that sameness provides the essence from which a person’s life experiences flow. When the sameness comes to an end, or changes locus, those whose lives sprang from it must be mindful that it is merely a turning point- and it has taken nothing away from them, unless they choose to give it up.

There will, very shortly, be a change in the course of the river from which I sprang. For the foreseeable future, that river will continue to flow, even with that course being altered. I can’t be a whole lot more specific than this, right now. but the second part of May will most likely find me on an unexpected road trip, which will be carefully choreographed, so as to meet prior virtual commitments I’ve made for this month.

I will get more specific, as I become more at liberty to share the situation.

Things That Last

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Posted by on in "sibling-ish", children, collaborating, Community, Family, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 24, 2021-

I have built friendships, over the past ten years. Those not founded on money, or any sort of desire, have lasted.

I have patronized several establishments and food providers over this decade. Those which honour me, as a single, older man, and base our transactions on a place of trust and integrity, have retained my patronage.

I have lived in the same dwelling for seven years. The landlord is old-school, “pay as you go”, knowing that I will honour my duty to remit my monthly rent on the first business day of the month and he takes care of anything that needs repair.

Faith and family have sustained me for seventy years. I know that neither is going to let me down. The Creator never will, nor will parents, siblings, spouse or son, whether they be in the flesh or in spirit.

These are things that last.

Ruling Myself

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Spiritual, Striving

April 20,2021- Today was essentially a good day-for my own self-control, in accepting the reality of a friendship’s nature. It was a good day for widening the scope of justice in our struggling nation. It was a good day for the Baha’i community, as we observed the First Day of Ridvan, the twelve-day period that celebrates Baha’u’llah’s declaration of His mission.

It was also a challenging day, in which someone on the edges of my circle told me, very bluntly, that he regarded himself and his children as my personal responsibility. To some extent, I have my own efforts to help him contact aid agencies to blame. I also recognize that he is an orphan, and as such cannot help but latch onto anyone who shows him kindness-demanding more and more, until the cord ends up being cut. I am playing out my endgame here, with a GoFundMe campaign and a continuing effort to match him with financial entities that are far better equipped to help, than is any lone individual.

I have waited a long time to be the ‘captain of my soul”. My actions will remain rooted in service to humanity-but NOT to anyone who barges into my space and expects fealty. I am involved in a far more global long game. Perhaps this is just another case of my holding someone, who wants to get close to me, at arm’s length-as another such individual told me, just before I blocked and deleted her from my life, nearly three years ago. More likely, I am figuring out how to handle someone who MAY be a grifter (most people who hound others for money ARE grifters). More likely, I am standing up and saying that my primary duty is to the Lord God; that my secondary duty is to my (biological) family and not to any interloper, no matter how many years he/she has been seeking my help.

As I said, today was a mixed bag-and this month, or next, may well end with some very emotional volleys being made.

His Ever-Shining Light

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Posted by on in Family, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 17, 2021- The little boy would always raise his glass, at the dinner table, and call out “Achtung”! He had seen John Banner’s character, Sergeant Schultz, give that command on “Hogan’s Heroes”, and it seemed appropriate for making a toast.

He was fourteen years my junior, but never saw me as any better than he. I was, in fact, one of his favourite wrestling partners, and when I “let” him pin me, he’d say, “Oh yeah?” and pin me even more tightly.

There were things he, in fact, grasped, that the rest of us had to think about a good while longer: Mom and Dad were the most important people on Earth; Medication, which in his case was constantly being switched and adjusted, was the bane of human existence-especially when it failed to prevent, and sometimes aggravated, the seizures that truly were the bane of his existence; There was nothing more important than a bear hug; There was never any excuse for anyone belittling another.

Brian had a limited spoken vocabulary-the seizures took care of that, early on. He was not, however, a stupid person, by any stretch-and managed to call me out, on a number of occasions, for having done something that made absolutely no sense to him. He had his favourite foods- pizza, fried clams and ice cream. When someone would spell out the word p-i-z-z-a, thinking he’d be fooled, my youngest brother’s answer was “OKAY!”. He lost his ability to walk, around the age of seven, which made being pushed in his wheelchair, around the neighbourhood, that much more important-and NOTHING beat going for a ride in the car. He loved seeing new places, but was okay with the beach, the forest preserve, our uncle’s and aunt’s cabin on Cape Cod. He was passionately in love with every girl he ever met. Going to school was the single most important part of his day.

When he passed on, twenty-seven years ago, today, Brian John Boivin had won the hearts of hundreds of people: Workers in the Special Needs schools of Massachusetts; attendants in the hospitals where he spent the last decade of his life; our second cousins, who were his sitters, when Mom and Dad went out for the evening, after we had all grown and left the nest; the cross street neighbours, who were his godparents; and most importantly, all of us who learned from him just what is most important in life.

Brian defined the adults each of his siblings became. For that, we can only repay him, by holding fast to the values which our parents imparted, and he underscored.

You Only THINK…

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Posted by on in collaborating, Family, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 10, 2021-

A story I heard today set me to musing.

In reality, there is no time when I don’t love my family members, to a one. You only THINK that I have left you behind.

There is no amount of trouble that could turn me away from my child. You only THINK that time and distance have crafted a wall.

There is no barrier tall or thick enough that could get between me and my God. Some only THINK that they can be that impediment.

There is no lie enticing enough, shimmering enough, to convince me that down is up. Some only THINK that its repetition will do the trick.

There is no true link between narcissism and piety. The narcissist only THINKS that a tie can be contrived between the two.

Be careful. What you think becomes your reality. It will not become mine.

Much Obliged?

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 6, 2021- This morning, one of my dearest friends invited me to a small gathering, set for tomorrow afternoon, with the caveat that I should not feel an obligation to attend. I am delighted to receive the invitation, and the last thing I think is that it is an imperative.

This set me to thinking: How many actual things in life are an obligation? There are relatively few, and virtually all are role-dependent. Many of us have heard it said, “The only things sure in this life are death and taxes.” For some, only the first is regarded as certain.

The word obligation often brings the image of something one does only while kicking and screaming. I will have to say this, with regard to my own life, at present: I do what I do, only out of love-Love of God. If one loves God, then one loves His creatures. So, as a parent-I take whatever time my son, and by extension my daughter-in-law (and in the future, their children) ask of me. As a citizen, I obey the laws of any community, state(province) or nation in which I find myself. As a member of any group, I contribute to the ideas, needs and agendas of the gathering-whether it is family, Faith-based, civic or charitable.

All of what I am presently doing is something of my choice. So, there is only one “obligation”, if you will. That is to keep my word. That said, I am going to bring this post to a close, as I have promised another friend that I will visit her shop, for a special event. It will also be a delightful time.