Acts of Kindness

Adrianna didn’t have the easiest of lives, but then maybe no one really does. Still, I think she had more than her fair share of struggle and despair. Much of it was brought on by decisions and choices she made along the way, of course… but not all of it. 

I think those who are the happiest are those who feel that they’re in the most control of their lives, that what they do and how they do it matters, that if they “keep their nose clean” as my grandfather used to say they can avoid heartache and despair and stress and disaster. You make your own luck. You are in control of your destiny and fate. 

Of course, I doubt anyone thinks that they are in 100% control of their lives, and likewise hopefully no one thinks they have no control at all. It’s where one falls on that continuum that matters, and I think Adrianna definitely felt that she occupied the lower part of that range for most of her life.  Much of her behavior and life choices, both good and bad, were probably directed at regaining or maintaining as much of that control as she could.

I’m going to talk more at some point about her personal demons and the life-long struggles she had with these issues, but right now I want to talk about her luck, because I think this also affected how much she felt in control of her life. 

She definitely had bad luck, and often anything that could go wrong would go wrong. I understood this and commiserated with her, for my early life felt the same. An important job interview? You have a flat tire. Waiting for an important piece of mail? The sender addressed it incorrectly and you thus miss a deadline. You finally save up to fix the dryer and get it done, and the next day the washer breaks. The only car key you have falls out of your hand, bounces twice on the pavement before falling down a storm drain. That sort of thing. She attracted such events, and there really is little one can do to change such luck other than expect the worst and plan accordingly, and believe me, both of us did this. Anything for a perceived sense of control.

So any random acts of kindness she received were godsends, and they actually happened with some regularity. She felt the angels at such times were looking out for her. That’s the one good thing about living a life that isn’t easy: when good things do happen, they can seem impactful and you really notice and appreciate them.

It happened many times, but one typical example that she shared with me happened at McDonald’s. She’d take the boys there occasionally so they could play in the play area, and if she had enough money, she’d get them something to share. Never for herself, of course, but maybe an ice cream cone or an order of chicken nuggets that she’d cajole the boys to eat after they came down the slide or what have you. 

One day an old couple came up to her and told her they’d seen her with the boys many times and wanted to buy them a happy meal. They obviously saw in her someone struggling with life, trying to grab a few nice moments when she could, and wanted to do something. She declined, but they insisted, and she finally accepted. 

Other times she’d be at the grocery store buying some staples and come up a bit short and the person behind her would offer to make it good. Once someone left a card on her apartment door saying that they’ve watched her with her boys and that she’s doing a great job. One day when she was short of money for a bill that was due, a piece of paper that was being tousled by the wind in a parking lot finally came to rest at her feet, at which point she noticed it was a $100 bill.

These things didn’t happen that often, but they happened more than you’d expect. I’m so grateful and thankful for every nameless stranger who ever did something kind for her, and we try to play it forward whenever we can. Such little things can make a huge difference in tipping the scales, at least for that day, towards the positive, towards feeling that maybe you’re gaining just a bit more control of your life. 
 

Scary Movies

When Adri was around 6 or 7, she used to like watching “scary movies,” and that didn’t mean stuff like “Halloween” or “Scream” or what have you, but rather selections from the old Universal Monster movies oeuvre of the 1930s and 40s. An hour and twenty-minute black and white stuff such as “Bride of Frankenstein,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “The Mummy,” etc.

I had enjoyed these films as well when I was her age, watching them every Friday night on Creature Features on WGN in Chicago during the summers when I was allowed to stay up late enough to view them, usually on a small black & white 10-inch TV in my bedroom with the lights out. It was fun. It was fun to be scared just a bit watching these over-the-top movies that relied more on atmosphere and lighting rather than gore and terror.

One of her favorites, the one she wanted to watch the most, was “The Wolf Man,” starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and his scenery chewing performance. I think what drew her in was the transformation from man to wolf depicted in the cutting-edge special effects of the time: a slow stop-motion sequence that showed the sprouting hair and brow ridge form under the dangerous moonlight.

However, at one point her granny in Louisville told me that she shouldn’t be watching such movies, that they terrified her and she was having bad dreams. It surprised me given my interactions with her and discussions about this when she was with me, but I promised to address it the next time Adri was with me.

We did, because literally the first night she was back after dinner she asked if we could watch “The Wolf Man.”

“But I hear that it is scaring you too much, that you’re having bad dreams,” I said.  “Maybe we should watch “The Aristocats” instead.”

“Well, sometimes I’m afraid that the Wolf Man will come and get me, that’s all,” she countered.

I reminded her that it was just a movie, and she agreed, but then countered with “…but you never know.”

We watched something else that night and I told her we’d try something the next day.

I had an old gaudy ring that I had found as a kid at some second-hand shop. It was brass with a coiled dragon on top with “ruby” eyes… and it opened up with a secret compartment! It was great. I showed her the ring and told her it had magical powers, that it was able to ward off werewolves, mummies, and various other creepy ghoulies.

She looked at the ring with extreme skepticism, took it in her hand and examined it like she was some grad student working on her doctorate thesis in archeology before looking up at me slowly shaking her head and replied,

“But daddy, there’s no such thing as magical rings!”

“True,” I agreed, “but then there’s no such thing as Wolf Men, either, right?”

She sat for a few seconds in pensive silence, then slowly nodded and put the ring on one of her fingers, and that was that.

We watched “The Wolf Man” that day.

Adrianna always faced her fears head-on. She’d use reason and logic when necessary to tackle issues and problems she might have faced, but was also willing to make room for emotion and intangible factors when trying to explain and assimilate with the world she found herself in. She had both a complex brain as well as heart, and I miss her.

The Look

2001, Dallas

Adri writing something at the computer, summer of 2001, pre-911 before everything changed. The Pandemic in 2020 would also be another huge dividing moment in history, one that definitely was a turning point in her life and for our relationship and dynamic (for the worse) which I believe greatly contributed to her fate. 

It's so hard to look at pictures like this, unposed shots where she's staring right into the camera, my eye, looking out from a past that is gone forever. Yet I struggle to look away, to stop staring at this picture and others like it. Not out of some sort of masochism, but rather, I think, because I don't want to sever that connection. 

What was she thinking here? And how can there be consciousness one moment and then suddenly it's gone?

One Headlight

Music is such a powerful mover of emotion, for better or worse, and has always been so important to me, an integral part of my life. I'm paying the price for that now, and will probably the rest of my life because of so many built-in emotional triggers in so much music that directly ties my thoughts to Adrianna.

"One Headlight" by Jakob Dylan / The Wallflowers was playing over the store speakers as I was grocery shopping today and it nearly destroyed me while in the produce section.

Example #47 in a continuing series.

"So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well, they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees.

I seen the sun coming up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste, she always had a pretty face
I wondered why she hung around this place.

Come on, try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We'll put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight..."

Tired

I’m so tired.

Tired of being angry at life,

Tired of being angry at death.

Tired of venting,

Tired of hiding the pain.

Tired of being triggered, 

Tired of forgetting.

Tired of apologizing to myself,

Tired of feeling I’m bothering others.

Tired of wondering why,

Tired of wondering how.

Tired of the dull pain, 

Tired of the sharp.

Tired of ephemeral hope,

Tired of despair.

Tired of fearing the future,

Tired of regretting the past.

Tired of endless introspection,

Tired of moving on.

Tired of knowing the boys’ sorrow,

Tired of feeling helpless.

Tired of crying 

Multiple times an hour,

Multiple times a day,

Multiple times a week.

Tired of missing her,

Tired of living without her,

Tired of knowing she’s gone - 

And yet it’s just begun.

Rhyming Couplets

As previously mentioned, I used to use songwriting as quasi-therapy for myself in an effort to help ease and get through the empty and lonely spaces that I found myself trapped in when Adrianna wasn’t with me (“Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” as Jean-Babtiste Alphonese Karr, or was what Neil Peart, used to say.)

Of course, it was better when these little bits of musical creation would form naturally and without effort, but often I’d set ground rules or conditions I’d have to follow in order to mix things up a bit and create an artificial challenge that would also keep my mind from wandering and also hopefully jump-start a creative process that was in a new and different direction.

For the music, maybe I’d remove one of the guitar strings and write something from that starting point, or change the tuning, or decide it would be in 6/8 time, or try to create the bones on some instrument I wasn’t as familiar with such as a keyboard. Etc.

For the lyrics, I’d allow myself no rhyming at all, or formed entirely with intentional near rhymes, or no chorus, or contrived and complicated rhyming schemes such as AABA BBCB CCDC, or I’d want a story narrative, or maybe instead a random stream of consciousness.

Anything to mix things up; anything to access a different and perhaps unused part of my brain. Anything to ease the pain of missing her.

Of course rhyming couplets was an easy lazy way to go, and one of my favorites was a song called “Images.”  One of the recurring themes my whole life with Adrianna was that of being aware of desperately trying to remember and capture images and moments of her while they were happening in that present, knowing full well how futile that was.  This included of course both real photographs, videos and recordings, but also, and mostly, just memories that I was trying to sear into my brain at that moment.

This was years before one of the most heartbreaking scenes in all of television, the penultimate episode of “Six Feet Under,” where the ghost of the then-dead Nate whispers into Claire’s ear,

                   “You can’t take a picture of this, it’s already gone.”

 

That line almost destroys me as much as the final montage of the actual final episode of that series, and that’s saying something. Somehow the writer of that episode was living in my head and stealing my thoughts and emotions about life and my daughter.

The song I wrote with sing-songy rhyming couplets that I’d normally stay away from was my attempt to capture in words and music this idea. As usual, I didn’t fully succeed, but still, it’s something. And… surprise, surprise… still and forever relevant:

Soon today is yesterday;

Try to hold it fast but time just slips away.

Hope my memories always last;

Captured images escaping from the past.

Like my new-born daughter’s face:

Just a minute old yet oh so full of grace.

And her half-shut gray-blue eyes:

Full of innocence they stare right into mine-- and see

“Every time I watched you play, every time I kissed your cheek,

 every time I held you tight, I remembered you.”

Time has come but never stays,

So my head gets filled with one more yesterday.

Hope that I can always find

The mental photographs I’ve stored within my mind.

Like the day when Adri walked:

Just a little girl still learning how to talk.

Standing up without a care;

Step then sway then step then grasping for the chair-- she smiles

“Every time I tucked you in, every time I washed your face,

 every time I waved good-bye, I remembered you.”

 

When the Real World Begins

I somehow found myself in an email conversation with a well-known and influential (within the magic community) writer of a magic blog and books, and at the end of the last email he wrote,

"Sorry to hear about your daughter. I'm fairly certain this world isn’t the whole story, and you’ll see her again when the real one begins."

For me, this is a great way to express hope that is religion-neutral, and is something that I can get behind. I struggle at times with daring to formulate such hopeful thoughts in my head, and often envy those whose faith brings enough certainty that at least a portion of the pain and loss during times like this is softened a bit and made more manageable. None of us can know for certain the true nature of reality, and sometimes just the small chance that there is something else going on is what keeps me from a total and complete breakdown. I often feel bad for our species; we've evolved to the point that our brains can contemplate that we are perhaps finite, and we recognize the extremely short time we have. It would seem no other animal or lifeform on this planet has to suffer the same fate, the knowledge of their own fleeting mortality. People with a strong faith in God have a sort of respite, for their understanding is that the human soul, at least, is immortal. I just hope they're right. They have to be right. At least, surely, this world isn't the whole story.

How Do People Do This?

This is so incredibly hard. Every time I think it's starting to get a bit easier, I'm reminded that it's not. How do people do this? I have limited real-life resources of those who've had to endure this, and they help, and family and friends help, but really: how do people do this?

I do mental gymnastics and try to focus on anything I can find that's good. I try to call forth and bring to life moments of her life mainly for myself but also so a part of her lives on for everyone.

That unsourceable, unverifiable, and probable apocryphal quote often contributed to Hemingway about everyone having two deaths, the final one being the last time someone says your name, is always in my head. So that's part of it, my struggle to keep her alive somehow. But those memories, as well as seemingly random unrelated triggers in music, movies, TV, literature and conversations will bring on a huge wave of sadness and despair.

So what are my options? To try to not think about her? But even if I could "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" her away from my memories, that would come at a cost of losing her forever. I'd never give away my memories of her and her life in exchange for a pain-free future if that future didn't include her in some form.

I assume it gets better at some point. Logic tells me this, as well as personal experiences of those who try to provide me some comfort. And sometimes it does seem to be getting better. A major moment in what I had hoped was a permanent movement forward was when I learned of the positive real-world effects Adri's organ donations have made. And it is a bit better when I think of that. But still, the waves return, just as strong and just as painful if *perhaps* a bit less frequent, and I have to subject family, friends, and social media to all of this in my (seemingly) futile attempt to quell the darkness.

So again: how do people do this? 

Driving

When she was a little girl Adrianna was obsessed with driving and couldn't wait until she got her license. She'd spend hours playing Pole Position and would always ask for a Power Wheel, something I couldn't afford then and which was not practical for apartment living, either.

She'd ask about cars, draw cars, play more Pole Position, want to visit friends whose parents weren't monsters and got them Power Wheels, and would ask questions about driving techniques. And, of course, we had the go-kart track.

The summer of her 15th year she and I did a self-run driving course that was offered. The parent would have to fill out all these forms and complete all these checklists, the kid performing various tasks such as parallel parking, merging on a highway, the ever-important three-point turn, etc.

|It was fun, and we did it all in a manual transmission car, so she had to learn how to shift and the clutch as well. I always thought this was an important life skill, and I also figured having to shift gears would prevent her from being on the phone or whatever since both hands would be occupied.

She did well.

However, as the years went by she started to like driving less and less. It scared her, and she started dreading having to do so. The onset of the COVID years in 2020 just exasperated this, and she’d have mini panic attacks when she had to drive alone. After her medical event of 2024 she stopped driving completely, because now she also had the fear that maybe she’d pass out again, and maybe the next time she’d be driving with her boys in the car. This terrified her.

However, recently earlier this year she had expressed a desire to start driving again. She asked me if I could drive with her and do the lessons all over again so she could regain her confidence, and I told her we would. She saw this as a way to start to move forward again, to become the self-sufficient person she always had been. A not-so-small significant step towards rejoining life as it were.

Of course, that never happened, and it’s another thing I feel bad about. Maybe I should have tried to gently push her last year to start driving again, but for me it was always difficult to know how hard to push her. She pushed herself, usually, and I didn’t want to overwhelm her. I did tell her I’d be here as her driving coach whenever she was ready.

Here's a video of terrible quality from before the HD days of one of our driving sessions 20 years ago almost to the day. She does well with me in the passenger seat and Cindy in back playing the part of camera man. I love it.

And when I went to my YouTube channel to get the URL I noticed that she had commented on the video three years ago:

“You were so patient with me! We need to try again, like I relearn.”

I never saw this comment until now.

The Imagined Future

 

I wrote this in a blog post concerning Adri in 2007, over 18 years ago. Suffice it to say that history has proven that I was never able to strike that balance successfully despite my best efforts:

"Sometimes it's almost a bit too much for me to take, for she's a thousand miles away and there's very little I can do at the spur of a moment after a frantic phone call. Also, there's really only so much you can do for other people; they really do have to help themselves, especially if that "help" is going to be a permanent, life-changing help and not just a short, temporary antidote. Now I'm sounding like John Galt or something. While I'm all for teaching people to fish, they have to be alive to make use of this skill. It's a fine scary line and I don't know where it is with her sometimes."

I always saw this future, this outcome, but tried to not let it become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I knew (intellectually) that there is free will and the future is not set, that there were two possible outcomes for her and us, that of course we were not fated to the present we have now.

I'd hope and try to believe this wasn't the reality we'd find ourselves in, and I think if anything I tried harder and with more sense of urgency since I couldn't claim ignorance in some future where she didn't survive. I'd seen it, I would stop it.

When she survived last year, for a New York minute I started to believe we had passed that fork in the timeline and were on the good outcome. I couldn't believe our good fortune to having beaten the odds that made me look like a pessimistic worry wart for nothing, but I was glad to be wrong.

But that optimistic outlook was short-lived.

I don't want to make it seem I was resigned to this, because I was *not*. But, there was the little dark raincloud that I'd *try* to ignore or thwart inside of me.

I'll say this, though: I've reacted a lot better than my future imagined self did with this outcome. I'm guessing it's the boys who have prevented that, at least. And Cindy. And maybe we're stronger than we think.

And maybe I'd had years to prepare myself.