Posts Tagged ‘anniversary’

18
Oct

Mixed Days And Negative Feelings

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Today's Reality

October has been a busy month of anniversary days and feelings to match.

On the 1st I celebrated my 10th anniversary of working for Hewlett-Packard. Well, sort of. Back in 2000 I left Coca-Cola to accept a job with Bank of America. I was with the Bank for a little over two years, and then they decided to outsource my job to Electronic Data Systems (EDS). EDS was very gracious and rolled over my service time with the Bank. About five and a half years later EDS merged with Hewlett-Packard, and again my service time was rolled over. So, while 2010 technically marks my 10th service anniversary with HP, I have physically worked for them only two years. It seems strange to think that my time keeps getting rolled over from one company to the next…what would have been nice is if back in the beginning Bank of America had counted my time worked with Coca-Cola (about 12-1/2 years); then I would be in my 22nd year with HP instead of my 10th. But, it really would not mean very much in the long run…to recognize my “special day” my manager wished me a happy anniversary and I received a certificate (via e-mail) from the CEO of the company thanking me for my years of work. It felt somewhat underwhelming for the occasion, but given the state of the business world these days I am grateful to have a job.

Last Friday (the 15th) was another sort of anniversary, marking four months having passed since Stephen’s accident. I no longer count the weeks; they are becoming too numerous to keep up with. I will probably stop counting the months as well once the first year or two has passed. It reminds me a lot of when he was born…first we counted his age in days, then weeks, then months until he was about 2, and then we counted years after that. It feels strange that once again I am counting time like this for one of my children; I had not expected anything like that to happen until my children started having their own babies sometime in the far future.

Today is yet a different anniversary – my 48th birthday. It is another year older for me, which I really do not mind at this point in my life, but it is also another “first” because Stephen is not here. I am sure my wife and younger son will do something special this evening to celebrate and my friends will offer their best wishes throughout the day, all of which I greatly appreciate, but I am certain I will still feel somewhat empty inside because Steve isn’t here.

Underwhelmed, strange, and empty – all negative feelings, even for the days that should have been positive. I do not know what significance, if any, could be tied to that. Any thoughts?

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8
Oct

Visible Cause, Hidden Effect

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Yesterday's Memories

Had my father lived, and had my parents stayed married, they would have celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary this week. But, sadly, neither of those events occurred. My parents made it about 18-1/2 years as a couple; their divorce became final about a month before I graduated from high school in 1980. Dad lived only eight more years after that, dying from cancer at the age of 57.

I don’t know the exact description used back then for the grounds of the divorce; these days, it would probably be called “irreconcilable differences” because they truly had a conflict between them that tore their marriage apart. I don’t know all the details, and I don’t want to know them; what I do know is my mother filed the papers and my father didn’t contest it, hoping she would change her mind and want to work out their differences…but it didn’t happen. He kept on hoping she would take him back for the better part of seven years. Finally he met another woman who he eventually married, and she cared for him as he became more ill in the months before his death.

I used to think that their divorce did not affect me very much; after all, I left home for college a few months later. Now, I’m not so sure.

I’ve been married for a little over 17 years, having celebrated an anniversary just last month. By all appearances, my marriage is on track to last much longer than my parents’ time together. Like my parents, my wife and I have had our differences, but so far there is nothing we haven’t been able to work out. Not too long ago, I was asked by a more-recently-married man what our “secret” was. “Just keep talking,” I told him. “Don’t clam up and walk away and hope things will fix themselves, because they won’t.” When I thought about it later, I realized that I had learned that lesson by watching my parents. Whenever he didn’t like what Mom was saying to him, Dad would simply close his mouth and walk out of the room; if he had stayed and kept talking, I believe he and Mom would have been better able to work out their differences. Who knows? Maybe they would have stayed married a few years longer, perhaps until he passed away.

I wonder how many other lessons I learned from my parents without realizing it?

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20
Aug

An Unwanted Anniversary

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Yesterday's Memories

It was 22 years ago today, on August 20, 1988, that my father passed away. It was a Saturday morning, and the word came from his wife at about 7am (my parents divorced in 1980, and he remarried in 1987). The entire sequence of events that followed, right up to the end of the funeral two days later, are as clear in my mind today as they were when they happened. Those memories were actually helpful to me when my son passed away in June; having been through the experience of making funeral preparations back then made it much less confusing when the time came to make Stephen’s arrangements.

For the first few years after Dad died, I would visit his grave on this day. I was always by myself when I visited…that was not because I wanted to be alone; it just seemed to work out that way. He had been in the Army when he was younger, and the government provided a metal grave marker that sits flush with the ground; I would usually make sure nothing was growing over it, then stand there silently for some time. Some years, I would talk to him as though he was there listening patiently; somehow, I felt he was.

 

Photo courtesy of Randy Sheppard

I got married in 1993, and the effort of raising a family took me away from visiting his grave regularly; then finally in 2000 I moved out of the state altogether, making any kind of simple visit impossible. I have been back to visit relatives several times since then, usually around holidays or while on business trips, but I never seemed to have enough time to pay Dad a visit.

When I stop to think about all of the changes in my life since that day, it boggles my mind – getting married and raising three children, moving 1,000 miles away from where I was raised and starting over in a new town, watching the kids grow into teenagers, sending my first one off to college, and recently losing my son. I have reached the pinnacles of success and the depths of despair, and had many accomplishments in between that were both good and bad; I wonder, though, how many of those might have been different had I been able to seek Dad’s counsel. There were countless times I wanted to talk with him about what I was doing and where I was going, and ask for his advice on so many difficult decisions, but I could not; instead, I had to figure things out on my own. I have tried to reason with myself, asking “what would Dad have done in this situation?” but it is simply not the same as talking to a living, breathing person.

If he were alive today Dad would be 79 years old, but I would be willing to bet his mind would still be as sharp as it ever was. He was a big baseball fan, and would watch or listen to every Atlanta Braves game each season and could rattle off stats about all of the players; today, he would probably still be trying to follow them, even though their games are rarely televised any more. He and my son Stephen would have gotten along great because Steve was also a big baseball fan, having played in Little League and also having followed the Braves as much as he could. I am certain they are both in Heaven now, swapping stories about their favorite players and games. They might even be taking turns hitting some balls around; both of them liked to do that, oddly enough. I’m sure I’ll have a lot of catching up to do with both of them when I get there!

And so, this is my salute to you, Dad. May you always rest in peace.

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