The Raging Strom

It's been raining for two days -- a rarity in the high deserts of Utah. During especially intense moments as the rain pounds against the house, Aidan likes to stare out the window and watch water run off the sidewalks and fill the gutters. I wonder if it's the beauty of the storm that attracts him to the window. Maybe it's the way the wind wraps the branches of the trees around each other or the way the lightning turns the sky from grey to white for one brilliant moment. Whatever the reason, Aidan loves to watch. I like watching too. There's something about powerful storms that I find captivating. When storms like this blow through our tiny town, I wish our home had a large covered porch so I wouldn't have to watch it behind two panes of glass. I want to be able to sit and feel the wind on my face and listen to the rain as it beats upon the house.

Later I put Aidan to bed. Even though the blinds are closed, Aidan stares intently at the window as if he can see the storm raging outside.

"Goodnight," I say.

"Night," Aidan says still staring at the slits of grey light that peaked through the blinds.

Sometimes Aidan likes to open the blinds and stare out the window after we put him to bed. I know that tonight I'll find him watching the storm when I come to check on him.

I head to the family room. Marathon Girl is lying on the couch watching television. She's had a long day and is tired. I sit on the far end of the couch and start massaging her right calf. It's been giving her problems of late and hampered her running. After a few minutes I can feel the tension in her body lessen and her breathing becomes more regular.

A gust of wind shakes the house. I glace up at the ceiling as if I expect the wind to tear the roof off the house and blow our quiet life to pieces.

"It's been like this all day," Marathon Girl says. "It never let up. I couldn't even go running today -- at least not with the kids."

"Your leg needs rest," I say and give her calf and extra squeeze to drive the point home.

Marathon Girl flips a few channels and stops on the local news. The main story is about a small plane that crashed into the murky waters of Utah Lake last night, killing the pilot and two passengers. An official looking into the crash blames the storm for bringing the plane down. The reporter says that recovery efforts were called off early today because of the storm. The story flashes to friends and relatives of the three men standing on the shores of Utah Lake crying.

The story makes me think of Aidan staring out the widow watching the storm. I tell Marathon Girl I'm going to check on the kids.

"Hurry back," she says. "I don't like being alone with the storm raging like this."

My thoughts are on the storm as I walk back to Aidan's room. Another gust of wind shakes the house. I marvel at the storm's intensity and how something so beautiful can be so deadly.

Reaching the Summit

He was 1,000 feet from the top of the world's highest mountain. Exhausted and without oxygen, solo climber David Sharp huddled in a cave, succumbed to oxygen depravation, and died. Dozens of climbers, including double amputee Mark Inglis, passed Sharp on their way to conquer Mount Everest. Only a handful of climbers stopped for a moment to offer Sharp some of their oxygen before continuing their ascent. Inglis later told the press he and others left Sharp to die because he was too far gone to save. That's why, Inglis said, he pushed on and become the first double amputee to climb Everest on prosthetic legs.

After returning to his native New Zealand, Inglis expressed surprise that he, of all the forty-plus climbers on that expedition, was singled out for not helping Sharp. But of all people trying to reach the summit that day, it was Inglis who should have stopped and helped.

In November of 1982, an intense blizzard forced Inglis and a fellow climber to seek shelter in an ice cave high on Mount Cook. Stranded in the cave for two weeks, their dramatic rescue was a major press event in New Zealand and helped propel Inglis to fame and a career that includes motivational speaking and telling people that "every one of us can do anything we put our minds to."

Because of the intense cold during his two week stay on Mount Cook, Inglis' legs were severely frostbitten and had to be amputated below the knee. Inglis took his experience on Mount Cook as a lesson in life. On his website (www.markinglis.co.nz) Inglis writes: "Life...for me is all about participation...we are all here to make a difference."

Apparently making a difference in the life of a stranded mountain climber is too much to ask of Inglis.

We cannot know whether or not Sharp could have been saved. He may have been too far gone for anyone to do anything. But why did Inglis, who was saved by others 24 years ago atop a high mountain, at least not attempt to do something? Of all people, Inglis should have known how Sharp must have felt. Instead Inglis pushed on and obtained his goal of climbing the world's highest peak.

Our responsibility to help our fellow man in times of crisis should take precedence over our personal pursuits and goals. Mountains can be climbed again. Lives, once lost, cannot be replaced.

Inglis should be commended for not letting the loss of his legs keep him from climbing mountains, but he should be chastised for abandoning a dying man. In the pursuit of his goal, which no doubt he had been working towards for a long time, he forgot that we have an obligation to help our fellow man even if that means delaying or giving up noble personal pursuits and goals.

It was two weeks ago that Sharp died on Everest. Then in an eerily similar incident last weekend, Lincoln Hall was abandoned by his Sherpa guides and left to die near the summit of Everest. He was found the next morning near death by a team led by Dan Mazur. Mazur and the climbers with him decided to give up their summit attempt to bring Hall to a lower camp.

"We all just felt like we knew that's what we had to do," Mazur told an Australian newspaper. "Here was this person sitting there, he's half-clothed, he's sort of talking, we're giving him our oxygen and food and water and he's started to come good. How could we leave a person like that?"

How, indeed.

On his website Inglis proclaims: "The message that I portray isn't just about how to recover from trauma in our lives, but how to make the most of what we have in our personal lives."

No one doubts that climbing Everest doesn't come without its risks. Five people died this last weekend on their way up to or down from Everest's peak. The total could have been six if it wasn't for Mazur and his team who valued human life above getting to the top and decided to forgo their quest to climb the world's highest mountain to save a life.

There are times when helping others at the expense of our own pursuits is in our best interest. Mazur and his team's actions are worthy of our praise. They will be remembered as heroes that Inglis and the rest of us would do well to emulate as we journey through life.

My Radio Show Starts Today!

My talk radio show start's today. Tune into The Abel Hour, weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon MST and join in the conversation as we investigate a principle-based approach to tackling life events from love and loss to dating and child rearing and that is just what we have planned for the first week!

In Utah the show can be heard on KSRR 1400 AM and outside of broadcast range you can listen to the show online at here.

The live talk show format will allow you to participate by calling into the show at 1-800-331-4301.

Enjoy the show!

Yes, I'll Comment on LOST

So what do I receive email about over the weekend? Someone asking for a pearl of wisdom? Thoughts on the amazing season the Detroit Tigers are having? Of course not. Instead everyone (all three of you) asked what I thought of the season finale of LOST. Fine, you want my thoughts? Here they are:

***Warning. May contain spoilers. If you don't want to know them, scroll down and read what I posted earlier today.***

First, I'm amazed that the writers of LOST can make me care about so many characters and have different storylines and plots going on and still be able to keep track of everything.

I'm trying to figure out why the Others call themselves "The Good Guys." Makes me wonder if there's another group on the island that we don't know about yet. Of course "Henry Gale" was the one that said they were the good guys and he was also the one who told Locke that he didn't push the button. (And we know what happens when the button doesn't get pushed.)

I'm glad the hatch was destroyed. I always thought the Island was the most interested character in the show. I'm glad they're moving the story back there. Maybe we'll be able to see more interesting creatures. (Any thoughts about the foot of a statue that only has four toes?)

I keep going back to the "snow globe" comment Desmond made. I wonder if it's an obvious bread crumb or something the writers are using to distract us from the real mystery behind the island.

I think Michael and Walt will come back soon and try to salvage his relationship with those he left behind.

Finally, is it just me or was it Libby that gave Desmond the boat? I'd really like an answer to that one.

Tag, I'm It

Nothing Good About Grief Tagged Me. Here goes nothing! I AM: A father, a husband, a writer

I WANT: To own the Detroit Tigers

I WISH: I had more time to write

I HATE: The Oakland Raiders, New York Yankees, and disco music (but not in that order)

I MISS: LOST. No new episodes until September! How will I survive the summer?

I FEAR: Rats. They really creep me out.

I HEAR: My coworkers chatting about The Da Vinci Code movie. They all seemed to like it.

I WONDER: What my life will be like if I hadn't made the decision to pull myself out of the deep dark hole I found myself in four years ago.

I REGRET: Nothing.

I AM NOT: A victim.

I DANCE: Me? Dance. Ha ha ha!

I SING: To Marathon Girl (but only if it's our song)

I CRY: When I think of Hope.

I AM NOT ALWAYS: Able to save the world. (But that doesn't stop me from trying.)

I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: Stories and novels and (hopefully) entertainment for others.

I WRITE: Because that's what I was born to do

I CONFUSE: The names of my children. They're easy to tell apart but that doesn't stop me from mixing them up. I think they'll be scarred for life and need intense therapy when they're older.

I NEED: To sleep more. Really. I can't do six hours a night every night.

I SHOULD: Stop doing this and work on my second book.

I START: Running and I can't stop.

I FINISH: Reading books. No matter how bad they suck, once I start reading one, I have to finish it.

I tag Rick and Redlaw. Do better than me, guys. It shouldn't be hard.

Thoughts This Memorial Day Weekend

I remember going to the cemetery every Memorial Day with my family. We'd put flowers on the graves of dead relatives and my mom and grandmother would tell stories about them. Since most of them died before I was born, they were strangers to meand I'd walk amongst the headstones reading the names and dates of the people who died. I'd figure out how old they were when they passed on and wonder what kind of life they had.

Because it was Memorial Day, most of the headstones had flowers or other tokens people had left for the dead. I remember once walking amongst the headstones and hearing the faint sound of music. I followed the sound until I came to a small music box someone had left on the headstone. The music box was playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star over and over again. I thought it was a strange song to leave at the cemetery until I realized the headstone was for a baby that had died three months after it was born.

There were always some headstones that, year after year, never seemed to have flowers. One I remember in particular was a three foot tall, polished black headstone that always impressed me as a young boy. I thought someone with a headstone like that must be important. Yet every time we came to the cemetery, I never saw flowers or anything else there. When I was younger I thought, "The family lives far away and can't come every year." In my teens I took a more cynical approach and thought that perhaps the person buried there was a bitter person who never loved anyone and as a consequence his family never bothered to visit his gave.

***

I haven't visited my first wife's grave since the first anniversary of her death three and a half years ago. Marathon Girl was with me at the time. I remember standing there looking at the headstone shared by my first wife and our daughter then looking over the cemetery and wondering if I'd ever go back. I had just gone through the hardest year of my life and even though I had been very successful in putting my life back together, each time I visited the cemetery, I felt like I was taking a step backwards and dwelling on the dead and the past and not my future. I made the decision not to return.

I didn't tell anyone about this decision until the next Memorial Day weekend. By this time Marathon Girl and I had been married three months. At some point that weekend Marathon Girl asked when I planned on visiting my first wife's grave. Marathon Girl was surprised by my response.

"Why not?" she asked.

"I don't want to dwell on the dead," I said.

There was a pause then Marathon Girl said, "You know I'm okay with visiting as often as you would like."

"I know."

"Are you sure?"

"I rather spend my time with the living."

There was a hurt look on Marathon Girl's face – a look I wouldn't understand the meaning of until a year or so later when the topic came up again and Marathon Girl explained to me that she worried that if she were to die, I'd never visit her grave either.

The topic of visiting my first wife's grave comes up this time of year and we've established a standard routine to this topic. She'll ask if I'd like to visit. I smile, shake my head, and say maybe next year.

***

It's been over a decade since I've been back to that cemetery my family visited every year. During that time I've occasionally thought back to that polished black headstone and thought about why no one ever left flowers at the headstone. The reasons have changed over the years but today, when I think of that black headstone, I wonder if maybe the person buried there was loved tremendously but his family had made the decision to move on with life and instead of dwelling on the dead in this life were looking forward to seeing him in the next.

One day I will go back and visit the first wife's grave though at this writing, I have no idea when that will be. But when I do return Marathon Girl and our children will be at my side.

Random Thoughts from This Weekend

Marathon Girl and I must eat a lot of Chinese food. The other day we were deciding where we'd like to go out and eat and when Aidan realized what we were talking about he came running up and said the words "Chinese food!" over and over again.

***

Would it kill a TV station to air a Detroit Tiger game once a month? I'm tired of looking at upcoming televised games and seeing only the Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, Dodgers, and Angels on the schedule. Contrary to popualr belief, I'm not the only Tiger fan out there.

***
One the things I enjoy doing most is chasing Aidan. Despite the fact I run three or four times a week, I seem to tire physically from the game much sooner than Aidan.
***

I'm slowly working toward my goal of benching my weight by the end of the year. The only discouraging part of this goal is the knowledge that benching my weight would be something most men could do very easily.

***
Aidan turned two recently. It seems like just yesterday he was born. These have to be the fastest two years of my life.
***
The best part of my weekend was rocking Steven to sleep for an afternoon nap. Rocking babies to sleep has to be one of my favorite activities.

This May Never Happen Again

I have to write about this now because it may never happen again in my lifetime.

The Detroit Tigers have the BEST record in baseball -- a game better than the defending champion White Sox. Yes, it's the middle of May and there are many months of baseball to come but the Tigers haven't been this good in over 13 years.

Sorry to bore anyone with baseball news but I thought I'd brag about the Tigers while I had the chance.