What if leukemia hadn’t taken her from us when she was seventeen, her life just beginning? What if the bone marrow transplant had been successful? When you lose a child, a day doesn’t go by without asking yourself that question, “What if?”. Today, January 30, that question crowds out all other thoughts. Today would be my daughter Amy’s 50th birthday. Unreal. She will always be just a child to me.

At 50, would she be married? Would she be happily married, and would her husband treat her like a queen? Would her husband be supportive and encouraging and love her more than anything? Of course, that is the life I wanted her to have.

Would she have had children? Leukemia took that opportunity from her, even if she had survived. I remember the doctor explaining what she will go through with her upcoming bone marrow transplant. He told Amy, her mom, and me that she would mostly likely lose the ability to have children. I remember Amy and her mom crying and me being just stunned. If she had children, would they be close to their cousins Holly and Jaxon? Would she, by the age of 50, have grandchildren? Wait, that would make me a great-grandfather! I would have loved that.

Would she have had a career or just a series of jobs? Amy never did well in school but she was a hard worker. Her first job was at the Burger King in Tamaqua. I remember her filled with pride when she announced to me that “Dad, a Whopper always has four pickles”. Yes, it’s the little things in life. Please hold on to all of them.

Would she have a good circle of friends? She loved her friends and they loved her. When she was in her early years of school, we had to teach her not to hug her friends too hard. She would hug them hard and not let go. Her best friend was probably her brother, Andy. They went through a lot together. He donated his bone marrow in an attempt to save her life. I know, at 50 and 47, they would be close.

I know she and I would be close if she were still here. We had a great relationship built on laughter and love. Even though through much of her life I was a weekend father, I always wanted the best for her. So, on this day, her 50th birthday, all I can do is thank her for the joy she brought me in our too short time together. That, and Happy Birthday, Amy.

I was asked recently how long I’ve been a Kansas City Chiefs fan. I think the assumption was that I had recently jumped on the band wagon. Oh, but no. 1966 it was or maybe 1965. I have never been to Kansas City, Missouri nor Kansas City, Kansas. I think they were my choice because of two things. My disdain for the establishment is one. The Chiefs were in the upstart American Football League, not the NFL. The other is my love of underdogs, as my dad taught me from a young age. The Chiefs were in a rivalry with the Oakland Raiders and the Raiders usually won. Hence, my love of the upstart, underdog Chiefs.

This year, for some reason, I have really been into football. Let’s blame Covid! I have been watching every playoff game. Usually, I would only watch games that my team was playing in. It probably is because I am home more and, after I get my hike in, I rarely leave the house. You may be wondering if I am one of those fans who yells at the TV. I can’t deny that that has never happened. However, I do deny ever painting my face in Chiefs red, white and yellow. I am writing this wearing my Chiefs long sleeve tee. They are playing later today and well, you know…luck!

At 6:30 today I will be glued to the TV, wearing my Chiefs shirt, and hoping for the best. They are playing the Buffalo Bills. Sportswriters are saying this could be the best game of the entire season. The Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes versus the Bills’ Josh Allen. It should be a high scoring, close game with an exciting finish. I’ll admit I am a little nervous. Maybe a little face paint wouldn’t hurt!

Things don’t always go as planned. Life is full of surprises. Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched. I could go on, cliche after cliche. But there is truth in all cliches. Here is my truth. I had a change in life plans when I was in high school. My mom died when I was a sophomore. My dad and I moved in, a few months later, with my brother Jim and his family.

All of a sudden, after being technically an only child (my older siblings grown and gone before I was six) I had siblings again. Debbie, Karen, and Jimmy. My nieces and nephew suddenly became my little brother and sisters! I wonder if my life would have been different, if this had not happened. I’m sure that is the case. I certainly would have missed out on a lot of fun. It was great being in this family. The games we would play. My favorite was sliding cookies across a dining room table to see who could get closest to the edge, without them falling off. I’m sure their mom, Eileen, didn’t appreciate the dirty floors this would create.

I knew their friends, the Lever sisters, the Kents, and who could forget Bossy Bowman! Of course, everything wasn’t unicorns and rainbows. We had our disagreements like sibling do. Debbie and I would fight over A-Treat Orange Soda. Wow, that was so delicious! Jimmy was only about five at this time, so I absolve him of this but his sisters would antagonize me whenever my girlfriend visited. They tried to eavesdrop as to what was going on in my attic bedroom. I’m surprised neither of them grew up to be a private detective!

Here we are in 2022. I’ll be turning seventy this year. My little “siblings” are in their sixties and fifties. It seems like just yesterday; they were helping me make signs for my campaign for Student Council Vice-President. I won, by the way! I can honestly look back at these few years and say they were some of the best years of my life. Debbie, Karen, and Jimmy will always be my little brother and sisters. Very often surprises work out just fine.

Being the baby of my family was a wonderful thing. Especially at Christmas time. Especially when I was in my prime gift receiving years of six to twelve. Especially when I was the only one at home and my four siblings had children of their own. I got presents from my parents (I mean Santa), of course. But then we would go to each of my sibling’s houses and I would get even more. Let’s just say that Christmas, for little Denny, was bountiful.

What is this Christmas change in the title, you may be wondering. There is a time in each of our lives when we are no longer kids, no longer the center of attention. That time came for me on Christmas Day, 1967. That is the Christmas Day that my mom died. That was the day I was forced to grow up. That was the day I began worrying about my dad more than I worried about myself. Yeah. A parent’s death at any time will do that. A parent’s death on Christmas Day will shout it loud and clear.

The following Christmas it was just me and my dad. I can remember what was under the tree for me in 1968. I received a jaunty red hunting cap and The Beatles’ White Album. Not the bounty of Christmases past. But my dad did his best. By the following Christmas my dad and I were living with my big brother Jim. Back to family Christmases. Another change.

Since that 1967 Christmas, my life has been very different. Christmases eventually became more focused on my kids, like they should be. Now my kids are all grown. More Christmas change. Do I think of my mom every Christmas Day? Of course, even though we didn’t have the best relationship. I think of my dad more though. His life changed that day, even more than mine. I gave up hunting in 1970, so I didn’t get much use of the jaunty red hunting cap. But I listen to the White Album even today.

My dad died on the day after Christmas, when I was thirty-three. Merry Christmas. Bittersweet. I do love change, but maybe not so much at Christmas time. Like Billy Squier said, in my favorite Christmas song “Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You”. A sincere Merry Christmas to all of my readers!

As I approach 70, I am becoming even more introspective. That is saying something. Those of you who read my blog know that I could get introspective about brushing my teeth. Introspection is the curse, or gift, of being an introvert. This morning I have been thinking about my childhood.

My first thought on the subject is that I had a happy childhood. I did. I look back at it with great affection. If I dig deeper, I wonder why my childhood was happy. There were the negatives like having all my siblings move out and marry by the time I was six. My parents, I think, didn’t really love each other and, in, fact probably didn’t like each other either. I remember weeks could go by without my mom saying a word to either my dad or me. Interestingly, silence and isolation is my go to when angry or hurt! I grew up lower middle class, like most of the town. I didn’t have a lot, but I had enough.

So, if family wasn’t the biggest reason for my happy childhood, then what is? I think it is growing up in a small town. Had I grown up in a city, I may have just been lost in the anonymous shuffle. Had I been raised in the country, I may have felt isolated and trapped. But small town was just right for me.

Was Slatington Mayberry? No it wasn’t that idyllic. But the familiarity was there. The small town vibe of everyone knowing everyone else. Of course that’s an exaggeration. But, I did deliver newspapers to my elementary school principal. I knew where most of my teachers lived. The counter person at the local drug store knew what I wanted as soon as I walked in. A police officer was the father of a close high school friend. The school crossing guards knew you and your parents. We had OUR seats for home basketball games at Smith Hall. We knew where all of our friends went to church. We all knew it was time to go home when the bank chimes rang at five. We could go to any barber in town because we all got the same haircut and they all gave the same haircut. In Mayberry there was the town drunk, Otis. I don’t know if we had an Otis, but we had our town characters. We knew each of them enough to kid around with them. We all got our prom tuxes as the same store. We all got our gym uniforms at Marty’s Sporting Goods. For someone who grew up in a big city, this may sound boring as hell. But to me, looking back, it was heaven.

Mayberry, NC was little Opie Taylor’s launchpad . Slatington, PA was mine. I hope you can look back fondly on your childhood whether it was in the country, or the city, or a small town like mine. Wherever it was, it had a big impact on who your are today. That’s enough introspection for now. Time to hit the trails!

The title is in quotes for a reason. It’s a song. This Sunday I am not writing about my father, Winfield Kernechel George, though later this month he would be celebrating his 111th birthday! Back to the song. “Like My Father” is written and performed by a woman who goes by the name of Jax. She is Tiktok famous. She has a great voice. She was a third place American Idol finisher. She is beautiful. She is funny. And, she may have written the perfect song.

Again, back to the song. She is singing to all of us, or to a potential lover, about the kind of love she wants in her life. It all comes down to this. She wants a marriage like her parents had and she wants to be treated like her dad treats her mom. “I want to grow old with someone who makes me feel young”. She concludes by saying that if she has a daughter, she wants her husband to treat their daughter the same way, “to love a queen, because she knows she’s royalty”.

I am not doing justice to the song in these few short paragraphs. Jax takes three short verses and perfectly expresses a feeling. Please check it out. I’m pretty sure you will love it. Or, am I giving too much weight to the song because it expresses a major regret in my life. I was unable, in my life, to give my children that. I was unable to be a role model for a great relationship. I know those relationships exist. It is not just Jax’s parents, though theirs seems really good. I’ve seen it with some of my siblings and, over the years, with friends and coworkers. You know who you are!

Interestingly, I did not see it growing up with my parents. Maybe that and a plethora (love that word!) of other reasons have led me down my life path? But that is for another blogpost. Right now, I am going to listen again to “Like My Father” by Jax. I hope you will join me!

How long do relationships last? Sometimes weeks. Sometimes years. Sometimes decades. I’m not talking just about romantic/sexual relationships. I’m talking about the people in our lives. How long do we know people?

First there is your family. You know your parents from the time you are born until, usually, their death. I knew my mom for only fifteen years, my dad for thirty-one. My big brother, Jim, has probably known me the longest, in fact all of my life, 69 years. My other siblings, I knew them fewer years. All of my many nieces and nephews I have known all of their lives. The oldest is 62 (maybe 63), so there is that number.

Look at friendships. Some start in school, most likely high school or college. Sure maybe some from elementary school, not many though. Friends you make at work usually last as long as you work there. Some continue past that. But most of them have missed the first twenty years, or so, of your life, so that number is going to be smaller than family.

What has gotten me thinking about the length of time people know us? I recently had lunch with a woman I graduated high school with. We reconnected through the work we did on the class reunion committee and at the reunion itself. We had a very nice lunch catching up on each others’ lives and reminiscing about growing up in Slatington. It turns out that, except for my brother Jim, this woman has known me the longest, sixty four years. We discovered that we were both in the same Kindergarten class, were on the same first grade bus to Walnutport Elementary, and spent the next five years at Lincoln Elementary, with the same teachers in every grade! We knew each other well all through junior and senior high schools. Then our lives diverged, with just an occasional class reunion or grocery store spotting.

I find that amazing. We grew up together, took different paths through adulthood, and end up sharing a table at Joey B’s in Palmerton, just three miles from our childhood homes. I love that stuff. I love the ebb and flow of relationships. I love hearing about peoples’ lives. I love thinking about the shared experiences that bond us together. Weird, huh? But, I think that is part of what makes me a good counselor. I’ve always loved people and was able to find good in almost everyone. On a sad note, in the past five years, I have found myself liking people less and less. Our society has changed so much. Maybe that is why I am so nostalgic. Maybe that is why I am drawn to the woods.

Having said that, I’ll conclude with a little lecture. If you have good relationships in your life right now, nurture them. If you have people in your life that you love, tell them so. Life goes quickly. Time is precious. Make the most of it. If you have the chance to grab lunch with someone you went to Kindergarten with, take it. When all is said and done, love is all you need. Well, that and gas money.

You are probably thinking that those two have nothing to do with each other. Oh, but you would be wrong. It will become clear if you read this post to its ending.

Last weekend I attended our 50th class reunion (actually 51st). A fine time was had by all. My biggest takeaway from the night was how it has become increasingly difficult to identify classmates that you haven’t seen for at least six years. We are all turning seventy soon. Do we change that much between 64 and 70? Apparently so.

Another takeaway for me was the amount of love in the room. I’ve written before about my Slatington High School Class of 1970. 121 eighteen year olds, now turning seventy. Just wow! We were a typical high school class back then, with its cliques and divisions. The uptown kids versus the downtown kids. The college preppers versus the business and general kids. The walkers versus the bus people. All that is gone, and has been for some time. There appeared to be a sincere caring about each of our lives and our health and our future plans. Maybe we are brought together by that common enemy of lives coming to an end. As Robbie Kemmerer, our class president said, “we may only have a couple more of these”.

As always, a topic of conversation was who isn’t there. (If you don’t want to be talked about, come to the next one!). We have lost about ten percent of our class to death. We had 35 classmates attend, some with spouses in tow. We had one “no show”. Barbara Jones, where are you!? I know there is a significant number of classmates who have never been to a reunion. Unlike me who loved high school, for many it was not a happy time to be a kid.

Segue time! I would like to nominate myself and this blog for the next Nobel Peace Prize. If that prize is about bringing people together, listen to this story. A few months ago I wrote a blogpost about our class and how much I wonder what has happened to people I had neither seen nor heard about since graduation night. I randomly selected Mark Bowers as one of those people. He was a good guy in school, always pleasant and polite. Apparently, his daughter-in-law is somehow a reader of this blog. She called Mark and told him that people were looking for him. He was incredulous! How could that be since he’s lived in the same house in nearby Germansville for the past forty years. His interest was piqued and he decided to attend his first reunion ever. He had a wonderful time and promised to attend our 55th. My next goal is to get the Jews and the Palestinians to share a few beers at the Lehighton Legion!

In another four years we will have our 55th reunion. I hope I am around to enjoy it as much as I did this year. I love my class. I hate growing older.

I remember, about thirty years ago, my sister telling me that she feels bad for me because I will have to bury all of my siblings. She said that because I am the baby of the family and when I was born, my siblings were 12, 14, 16, and 18. My sister is gone now, for many years. Before her death, we lost my oldest brother. Last Sunday, we lost my brother, Gary, closest in age to me. That leaves me and my big brother Jim.

Gary was a wonderful brother. He loved these three things in, I think, almost equal measure: family, the outdoors, and laughter and having fun. I am lumping his love for his wife, Nancy, in with family, though their love for so many years was something I always looked up to and could never quite replicate.

He got me my first job, working for Pfizer in a pigments factory in Slatington. It was my first job in anything but retail, so he watched over me, showed me the ropes, and helped me fit in. I remember him once calling me in the middle of the night to tell me that our factory was on fire. We drove together to Lehigh Gap to see our futures go up in smoke.

I bought my first house from Gary and Nancy. As a first time home owner, I was basically winging it. It was good that he lived near me and was always there to help me out, like a big brother should. Luckily, he was the mechanically handy George brother.

Gary hosted our annual George New Years Day touch football game in his back yard. I knew our tradition was coming to an end the year he said that maybe he would just be quarterback for both sides. He was getting older, we all were. It ended maybe two years after that, but remains one of my favorite family memories.

I mentioned his love of laughter and having fun. Here are just some random memories of this fun loving guy. I was about six when he taught me how to make a fart machine from a coat hanger and a rubber band. We would sit on them at dinner and, and at inappropriate times, lift our cheeks and burst into laughter. He would never say Achoo! when he sneezed. No, Gary said Ah Horseshit!. At our Thanksgiving dinner he would always be the first to say “All this work, and dinner is over already”. The funny thing there is, in our patriarchal family, the men did almost no work that day! He would always have funny stories to tell. When anyone he knew finds out I am his brother, they tell me what a nice guy he was. I could go on forever with Gary stories. But just one more. He was never very domesticated as far as household chores, but he said when he retires he just wants to bake pies.

I miss him. I always looked up to him. The way he loved Nancy. The way he raised his kids. His love of the outdoors, which I share. I looked up to his sense of fun and the balance he was able to achieve in his life between work and home and personal pursuits.

An ending quote: “My brother may not always be at my side, but he is always in my heart”.

Next Thursday is the twentieth anniversary of the greatest physical challenge of my life. On October 7 it will be twenty years since I ran the Steamtown Marathon. Starting in April, being able to run six miles, and training all summer long, to eventually run 26.2 miles was certainly a challenge. A challenge met. Slowly, very slowly, but still met.

Thinking about that got me considering other challenges in life. When I talk with clients about aging, I often advise we have to stay active physically and mentally to have a longer enjoyable life. A third part of our aging lives is the emotional challenges we face constantly.

The greatest emotional challenge of my life was, of course, watching my daughter slowly die over the course of eleven months in 1988-1989. Sure, I have had romantic breakups and career changes and other family deaths. But emotionally, nothing can top the loss of a child. In a way, that compared to the marathon. You start out full of optimism. You do everything you are told by the experts. Halfway through you begin to have doubts. As you near the end, you think you will never make it to the finish. And finally, relief that it is all over. Then you spend the rest of your life thinking about the experience.

The greatest mental challenge would be any freaking math class I took since 7th grade. In 7th grade, with Mr. Yehl, we learned all about Base 5 number systems and I have been lost ever since. Algebra. Forget it. Y = who cares! Geometry. Forget it. Sines, cosines, tangents. Tangent is right. As soon as Mrs. Smith started talking about geometric shapes, my mind would go on a tangent, mostly likely thinking about girls! Trigonometry. Forget it. My thanks will always go out to those future engineers in my classes who helped me get by.

So what is the next challenge, the next test? Here it is. Staying alive and healthy and curious as long as I can. Following Dylan Thomas’s advice “Do not go gentle into that goodnight, rage rage against the dying of the light.” Who wants to join me in this challenge? I hope it is all of you!