Posts Tagged ‘Mandy’
Aside:
(Jason, you haven’t left any comments anywhere (or texts, voicemails, snailmail, pigeonmail, email…) reminding me that I haven’t posted in like 5 days!!! Do you even care anymore?!?!?! How am I supposed to go on if you don’t care?!??!! :) )
I did something last week that I’ve never done before. And I’m proud of it. And I think it was the right thing to do. Although . . . I honestly never thought I would be the person to do this (just tell us already!).
Here’s the sitch (is that how the cool kids are saying it?)—Samuel and Elliot are both on a “travel” soccer team. Which basically means that they had to try out to make this team, and it is supposed to consist of the best 8&9 year olds in the club. They are both very good little players.
In the last few games of the fall season (and now in the first few scrimmages of this spring season) Mandy and I began to notice a trend. Samuel was getting less and less playing time. Like, a lot less.
What’s crazy is I have been a coach many times at many levels, and I have had this talk with parents on occasion. It is a difficult balance of trying to be fair, trying to allow kids a chance to play, and trying to create the best opportunities for the team to win.
(I can remember one time as a 19 yr old coaching a JV team for my old highschool this mom came up to me so upset about her son’s playing time. I can’t remember what I said, but it didn’t help. She demanded to talk to my “boss” the AD. We did. He backed me up. But I wonder what the 33 year old me who now has his own kids, would have said. I would have probably handled it much better.)
So anyway, too make this story short—Mandy and I were getting increasingly concerned. That’s the word I’ll use.
I decided it was time to act. What’s interesting is I actually really really like their coach. Great guy. Great coach. Very reasonable. And he and I have begun to have a kind of friendship as well.
But we decided it was time to address this. So I wrote an email. This was SO hard for me. You see, not many people know this (HAHAHA) but I am a HUGE people pleaser (OK – that sounds strange. It’s not that I like to please HUGE people, LOL, but you know what I mean). I really really want EVERYONE to like me. All the time. Whenever something happens that may interfere with that, it becomes very difficult for me. I get all crazy feeling on the inside.
This was definitely a challenge.
What was even stranger is that after I wrote the email and worked and reworked it—I finally agonizingly hit SEND. And my cable went out! And it didn’t come back on until like 4 hours later! And my email literally disappeared. It’s nowhere!!
So I had to write another one…
I finally bit the bullet and did it. And the coach got it 20 minutes before their game this past Sunday. Ouch. I feel kind of bad about that. But he was absolutely great about it. Just great. We addressed some issues. He had some misunderstandings about Samuel that I think I was able to shed some light on, and he was very open to re-looking at stuff.
Samuel played much more (and I don’t even feel a little guilty about that) and he actually played fantastic. They lost a heartbreaking loss, 4-3 with the last goal being scored with no time left. But he came bounding over to me SO happy after the game (a little unusual for him after a loss), and I know it was because he got to play. Really PLAY! I was, and am, so happy for him.
Then at practice the coach took time to personally work with him one-on-one on some areas that I think in the coach’s mind are holding Samuel back. Great.
So that’s it. I am so happy I actually did it. I am not a parent who is delusional about my kids’ greatness. I know where Samuel lines up with the other kids. But I also know he deserves a chance to play and grow. And I also know that a good coach unlocks potential. AND 9 years old is WAY to young to shut that potential down.
I felt like I did a good dad thing. And I’m so happy for Samuel. (But I sure hope I don’t have to do it again anytime soon!)
I’m tired, and I’ve gotten sucked into another late night, not-so-good movie. So this is going to be short. :)
Today was a good day. And its on days like this where I realize how thankful I am for my job. This morning I got to worship with and be around some great people. I genuinely enjoy the people in our church. I feel like we have a lot of very sincere and real people in our church. It’s refreshing.
Tonight I got to spend time hanging out with my youth group. It’s funny. Today a lady at church was telling me that I should get a “younger speaker to come speak to youth group, because young people respond well to younger people.”
What??
That’s my line!
That’s what I’ve been saying for 16 years! And now, guess what? I’m too old?
Crazy.
So anyway, that was a bit of tangent. I love being around my youth group. They are amazing. They are such an inspiration. To be around young people as they find their path to God; to answer their questions while they still care what the answer is; to be part of the foundation upon which…hopefully…a life will remain to stand upon for years to come—all of this is so much fun for me.
And to add to that we welcomed some friends of mine from New York to lead tonight, and then got to eat out late with good friends from there, and good friends from here.There’s nothing quite like hanging out late at a diner, eating, laughing, and enjoying life. Yep – that’s all part of my job too. Really! Isn’t that crazy?
To top it off, I got to come home and sit with Mandy as she fell asleep on me as I rubbed her hair (no, that’s not part of my job – but it was still awesome).
Yep it was a good day. And I really do have a good job. And now that the stupid movie is finally over . . . I’m going to bed.
Grieving with kids is a complicated business. Mandy and I, as we continue to live with grief, have the ability to look at each other and see if this is a down day, or if someone is just running a little low. We can talk. We can pray.
But kids are different sometimes.
And this week it’s been like something has just hit our kids. We always talk about Malachi and Hope. They are part of a our family and so they enter our conversation regularly. But this week our kids have been talking specifically about missing them a lot.
We have these two special bears that we got for each of them at the hospital. The kids call the bears Malachi and Hope (very sweet and sad). Well they go through phases of getting obsessed with them, and recently they found them and started wanting to sleep holding them. (How sad is that!)
And then, the past three nights, one of our kids has started crying uncontrollably about missing them. This is really unique. I mean, there have been tears shed, but it has honestly been a while since the kids have cried. And now out of nowhere, the floodgates are opening.
I think maybe it has something to do with the arrival of Eden. I mean experiencing what they are missing with the other two may just be hitting them like never before. Eden has brought so much joy and life to our house. She is a ray of sunshine, literally, shining everywhere she goes. But what is very real and apparent to us (as it was before we were blessed with Eden) is that Eden does not replace in any way Malachi and Hope.
And so, while we are comforted and blessed by Eden, we are also sadly reminded of the babies we have not had the chance to do all these special things with. Every day.
So we are living in the bittersweet right now. And I think we probably always will.
If you think of it, pray for the little ones in our house. They are carrying burdens that no child should ever have to carry. And it is so sad as a parent to watch them try to work through the very big concepts of death, heaven, life, and grief.
Praise God for his continued faithfulness to our family. May he be ever closer!
Have you ever seen this movie? Mandy and I saw this movie when we were first married. We both loved it and hated it. It haunted us for some reason. The premise is that this lady has a decision to make, and then like a ‘choose your own adventure novel’ (remember those?) the movie follows the character down BOTH paths. And it shows how similar and how different life could be based on one simple decision.
Wow. It’s actually pretty deep right? So tonight I was looking in my attic for some snow pants for my friend Christine (ok for her kids, not really her!) and I found that one of my boxes of college stuff had been knocked over. A paper was lying on the attic floor, so I picked it up. It was a paper I wrote November 6, 1997, just weeks before I proposed to Mandy.
Crazy right? Even more interesting is the topic of the paper. It was titled, Finding My Way Through The Wilderness: Solicited Generativity. The paper is a discussion of several books and a movie we watched in class. It teases out a theme of what I called “solicited generativity” out of each work. Generativity is basically one generation passing things on to the next—so solicited generativity is when you seek it out from someone.
Here is my opening paragraph, a voice from 13 years ago:
Lately I find myself at a stage in life in which I am making several life-impacting decisions, as well as one major life-long decision. As I mull over these decisions, I spend much time in projective thought—picturing myself being thirty or forty and wondering if who I am then will be satisfied with the decisions that this immature twenty-year old has already made for me. Or will I be cursing the arrogant youngster for destroying my life and trapping me in a world I would never have chosen for myself, if only I had had the chance? This frustration haunts me sometimes, but there simply is no possible way for the twenty-year old me to contact the forty-something me. So what can I do? Either I never make any decisions until I am thirty (and then worry that the sixty-year old me will be trapped) or I find a way to make the best possible choices for all the “me’s” to come.
When I read this by iPhone light in my freezing attic tonight, for some reason, it just really struck me as profound. Here I am, the thirty-something me, listening to the 20 year old me trying to project to where I am now. Even as I write this, it’s still profound. And it makes me think of some things:
Can you tell from reading that excerpt how afraid I was of being trapped? And how almost paralyzed I can become in making decisions for fear of making the wrong one? This still plagues me today. It is my over-inflated fear of failure.
Also, I look at that guy, working late into the night in my parent’s basement, and he has no idea. He really doesn’t. I mean, not at all. He has no idea how deeply he will learn to love this girl who he’s desperately trying to decide if he wants to marry. He has no idea how profoundly he will be forced to suffer. He has no idea the earth shattering power of love he will feel for his kids. He has no idea that in 13 years, two of his best friends’ marriages will be ending in divorce. He has no idea of the turns his mom’s illness will take. He has no idea that two of his very best friends in life, would move to California (no guilt Jason and Darby!). And on, and on, and on. The wonderful days and the bad days. He has no idea.
And yet, as a young boy I (we) jumped into the waters of life with such gusto and confidence (ok, maybe not me—but I hear others do). And so, isn’t it natural 13 years later to reevaluate? How did the 20 year old me do? I can remember this time after I graduated high school (don’t think I’m too dorky here) and I was driving somewhere and it hit me—I’ll never go to high school again! And I actually started to cry. I hate the feeling of losing something, or regret. So then I thought, Well would I do anything different? Did I miss any opportunities? And I honestly decided that no—I was totally happy with how I lived my life to the fullest in high school.
So, at almost 33 years old, is it time to reevaluate again? I look at the major decisions of my life during that time, marrying Mandy was the most important. Then deciding to not pursue my graduate degree, and instead move into full time ministry. That was a big one too. Deciding to live in the same place I grew up, and never move or explore new territory. Deciding to take a job that would probably never have the chance of me making tons of money. These were all life-altering decisions I was making at that time.
So, sliding doors—what would my life be like if I had done these differently? What if I had not married Mandy? Just the thought of that hurts. I was just thinking the other day how much I have changed (for the better!) because of her influence in my life. Who would I even be without her influence? Even with the pain of losing two children together, I know if I was given the choice to marry Mandy again 100 times, I would make the same choice, 100 times over. I have been amazed in our relationship, time and again, at how perfect she is for me. And most often in ways I never anticipated.
Career? You know, I have to say again, that I really feel like I did the right thing. I mean, I do wish that I had lots of money, that I had traveled more, and that I had a Masters Degree in something. But, you make certain choices, and there are “consequences.” In my 20′s I did get to travel quite a bit as a minister, and that will always be such an amazing time in life that I am so grateful for. If I had gone to grad school, that may have not been possible. And, what if I had chosen a different career path? Then all these hundreds, maybe even thousands, of young people I’ve had the opportunity to influence for God…where would they be?
Sliding Doors.
Isn’t it amazing how every decision affects another, which affects another? How your decision can affect someone else, and then someone else, and so on? Do you ever think about the ripple effects of your decisions?
Also, isn’t it true that there are always trade offs? I mean, you can’t have everything all the time, so you make decisions about what you want and when. This feels risky, but I really believe that if we don’t compromise our inner self, and stay on target for who we are called to be in God, that even through the most challenging times, we can come out knowing we are on the right track.
So yeah, longest post ever by me, right? Maybe this will encourage you to think about the blessings in your life. And maybe there are even choices you wish you could have back. But even in those, may we learn to find the great Redeemer. The One who takes broken dreams, misplaced goals, and disappointment, and makes new life.
Trying to out-give Mandy is like trying to out leap Lebron, or outrun Carl Lewis, or out-throw Drew Brees, or, well, you get it. It’s not possible.
I’ve known Mandy for 21 years, loved her for 14 (that’s right, do the math—it took seven years for me to fall in love with her, ha!) and I’ve yet to meet someone who can out-give her. She is so humble about it, that she’ll probably kill me for writing this actually. So yeah, this will be my last blog ever. Hope you enjoy!
For example, she gives away gift cards! I mean, gift cards! Who gives those away? The whole premise of a gift card is that it is a GIFT TO YOU. It is not intended for other people’s consumption! I try to make rules. Really I do. I mean, when I buy her a gift card to finally go out and go shopping for herself!!! I will emphatically try to “tell her” (good luck with that since she’s equally as stubborn as she is generous) that she isn’t allowed to spend any of it on anyone else. Invariably she will come home with new clothes for each kid…in the entire Wendell family! That’s like clothing a small country!
Me and my kids have a running joke at meal time that daddy can barely ever get a kid something they want before mommy can. I have actually worked on the art of out-giving Mandy. It’s a small obsession of mine. At dinner time I will sprint, box out, cheat…do whatever it takes, to beat her to the fridge for that extra ketchup that Elliot wants.
But seriously, not only is she quick to give, she is thoughtful in giving. You know the difference? Some people are generous, and it’s nice but not meaningful—not touching. When Mandy gives, you know she’s thought about it. She actually gets more excited when she thinks of a great blessing idea for someone else, than she does when someone blesses her. In fact if you’ve ever tried to give her something you know it’s like trying to get a kid to eat liver (or me for that matter – ew!), it just won’t happen!
We had Jonathan and his kids and Jessica over for the snow storm this weekend, and we had so much fun together. And whenever you have so many people in one house, there is always a lot going on. But as the weekend passed I was just hit all over again by the giving nature of Mandy. Stuff I would never think of (like sending me out thursday night to buy ingredients for homemade cookies, homemade brownies, homemade soft pretzels, ham and homemade mac and cheese, ice cream for the kids, soda for the adults, and on and on) she was already on top of the day before because she wanted to make sure she was prepared to have special things to give! If I even have the urge to be generous, I count that as a victory. This girl actually plans ahead so she can be prepared—just in case!!
She cracks me up. So yeah, dare I say more? She’s totally going to hate me for this.
But I guess this is my last ditch effort to out-bless her. Certainly she can’t figure out a way around this, right?
So that’s my little Ode to Mandy. Maybe I’ll put it to music or something. But people like her who work tirelessly behind the scenes of life to make sure the rest of us feel loved and special should have a special day of honor. Of course, if we had one, they’d probably end up planning the whole thing anyway, to make sure we had fun at that day, so you know, it would defeat the purpose. But anyway, I digress….I am thankful. So thankful. For a girl like her in my life who reminds of what’s really important in life, day in and day out.