There is a question that recurs again and again among us. Do people ever change? We state it that simply because it’s easily understood what it is about. It isn’t about if we change physically since we all know we do. It’s about whether our character and personality change. Will a high-energy, type A personality become a mellow, laid back slacker? Will an amoral criminal ever straighten up and become a fine, upstanding citizen? Will a cheater always remain a cheater?
As a person in the middle of his 7th decade I can tell you with absolute confidence from my personal experience that the answer is without reservation a resounding ‘YES…sorta, kinda, probably, possibly, maybe’.
I know, overwhelming in its decisiveness, right? Well, that’s the rub. I have changed dramatically in my understanding and my responses to all sorts of things. All I have to do is compare my relationship to my two wives. I was married to my first wife when I was 24. We divorced when I was 45. I married my second (and current) wife when I was 51. I am now 64.
I believe I am a much better husband to Linda than I was to Kathy. The reason is I changed. The experience of seeing Kathy so unhappy in our marriage and realizing how much of that was my fault changed me. As did the actual divorce and single life that followed.
When I married Linda I took my vows much more seriously. And by vows I don’t just mean sexual purity, I mean the whole idea of vowing to put her as #1 in my life. Part of this change was self-preservation. I didn’t ever want to behave so as to go through what I had gone through with Kathy again. But more of the change was my paying attention to what is right and wrong regardless of whether Linda or anyone else found out about it. I grew up a bit. I changed. I didn’t transform from a caterpillar to a butterfly, but I did become a better caterpillar. Not a perfect one, just better.
So, if you are wondering about this; whether you, or someone you know, can ever change. I say yes. That doesn’t mean it will happen, just that it can and does happen.
I drew this drawing and wrote the commentary 4 years ago today. Still true.
To Everything
As the song and bible passage goes, To everything there is a season. This has been a recent season of death for me. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s a natural thing. And no, I am not the one doing the dying, at least not in the short term. But in general I am at the age when one comes in contact with death a bit more frequently than when younger. In the past week specifically my father-in-law, Tom Reynolds, and a friend, Oren Miller, have died. A little over a month ago my Aunt Jean died. My father, Skeets Coleman, passed away less than a year ago. In addition I have a friend, Charlyn Shelton, almost die in a car wreck. On social media many of my friends have shared about their loved ones passing away as well. And so I have been thinking about death recently.
Sunny Mexico / Cold USA
Two weeks ago my wife and I took off on a vacation to Punta Mita, Mexico. It’s on the Pacific Coast, just north of Puerto Vallarta. We went with her brother and sister and their spouses. It’s the first vacation of it’s kind we have ever taken together. On the surface it seemed like we planned it pretty well. Mexico was at 78-80º every day while almost all of the US was below freezing with ice, snow, wind, sleet and general weather misery.
Winter Brings the Sweetness
But there was more to this trip than the good timing of being in warm weather while our homes were in freezing temps. There was also this: We all bought trip insurance because my wife’s father, Tom Reynolds, wasn’t doing very well. He had been battling cancer for over 12 years and it finally seemed to have got the better of him. While there was some hope, it was slim. But we made our best guess and thought it would be best to go on this trip sooner than later and so we did.
But with a day and a half to go in the vacation we got the call. He had taken a turn for the worse and was in the hospital. We did our best to figure out early flights home but it was not in the cards. That meant in spite of the situation we were going to be in Mexico one more full day, leaving the morning after that.
We had a choice to make. We could lounge around the pool and ocean, static and disconnected, giving us time to dwell on our not being able to get home, or we could go out and do something. We chose to go out and do something. We spent the day at a small beach village a few kilometers away from the resort. We ate, we bought some gifts, we walked around the town. We found a real estate office and fantasized about buying the various houses that were pictured for sale in the window of the office. We people watched. I took a lot of photos of scenes on the street.
We hadn’t forgotten about Tom, but we still had to live in our circumstances. And while we had some guilt for not being there or being able to get home right away, we also had enhanced gratitude for our lives knowing that someone we loved wasn’t far from being at the end of his. In other words, it was the winter of his life that gave a portion of sweetness to the summer of ours.
Warm Life in Winter
We did make it back on schedule and went straight to the hospital. Tom was holding his own but the overall situation wasn’t looking good. The cancer had spread to his brain, he had had seizures, his blood pressure had fallen then risen and he had contracted pneumonia. He was sedated, in no pain that we knew of, and had a ventilator doing his breathing for him.
Yesterday morning, 5 days after we returned, we got another call. His blood pressure was falling and his meds were maxed out, they couldn’t adjust for that anymore. We were told to gather. With his entire family was around him those closest to him told kind and funny stories about him. They told of his passions and eccentricities.
One of the great things about his family is they were raised by him and their mother to be musical. Linda’s sister taught music and choir in high school for decades. Linda had been an opera singer in her past and their brother had been in choirs as well. And so, as we gathered around him, they started singing his favorite hymns and some of our favorites, among others. I sang in the background or hummed along as I was able. But a lifetime of them knowing how to sing with each other came out and soft transcendent harmonies of love and beauty sent him on his mysterious way.
And then he was gone.
Warmth of Life in Summer
But we aren’t gone. We remain alive. We still eat and breathe and sleep. We still laugh. We still tell stories and wonder about things. We still worry about others. We still create and talk and love.
With a loved one’s passing or winter encasing us in cold we tend to see the negative, and it’s hard to argue with that. But ask yourself this: when do you most frequently hear admonitions to enjoy life, to embrace the joy and to live in the moment, to not let any opportunity pass by where you can let a loved one know (or a stranger for that matter) that you love them and are there beside them. Who do we hear that from the most? From one who has lost a loved one or almost lost their own life. It’s that brush with death that brings out in them the passion for life, right?
Running Life
After Tom died yesterday we lingered around the hospital until the funeral home came to get the body. We then went to lunch. After that it was time for me to go home and shortly thereafter I went to my job coaching runners. It was my first run in almost 2 weeks (I slacked off in Mexico, don’t judge). It was cold, foggy, misty and a bit windy. And I loved it. I loved it because I was alive to love it.
Due to the very public passing of Steve Jobs I have been listening, reading and thinking quite a bit about death this week.
One of the best clarifications of death and why it has ultimate value to us the living was spoken by Mr. Jobs himself during his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005. Here are three paragraphs from that address. Take the time to read them. It really is worth the time, after all…
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. (emphasis mine) Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
It’s day 3 of Metaphor week. I am enjoying my new book, ‘I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like – a comprehensive compilation of history’s greatest analogies, metaphors, and similes’, but I am realizing as I go that so many quotes I have read and used over the years have been in one of those three categories already!
Sometimes I feel like that myself. I am a very social person and I actually keep up with many people from my past, people who are life-long friends, but like many men, I don’t have a ton of close guy friends.
I first realized this when I got divorced in 2000. One of the elements that led up to the divorce caused there to be a split between friend and I. Until that happened I thought of him as a guy I saw once in a while. We socialized, had some creative and extended family elements in common, but that was about it. But after it happened I realized that he was one of my closest guy friends. It actually seemed sort of pathetic to me at the time. This guy I spend barely any time with turns to be one of my closest friends. It made the divorce all the harder.
That is one reason I like organized recreation, such as the running group I am in. I have been injured lately (achilles tendon) and so have not been running. I have really missed it. In part because of the exercise (I have gained weight for sure) but also because of the friendships. I miss hearing what is going on in people’s lives. I miss telling stories of my life. I miss encouraging my friends.
Yesterday I mentioned something I used to say to my daughters as they went to school in the morning. I would say ‘Make good friends, keep good friends’. How do you do those two things? ……………………………..
My family is blue today. I have a cousin, Jim Powell. His only son Gavin died along with his best friend Matt in a rafting accident this week in Walnut Creek, California. He was 17, Matt was 16. There had been heavy rains in the area and after Gavin found an old inflatable raft in his garage they made plans to raft down a local creek. They wore helmets but no life vests and were unable to navigate in the fast rushing waters. Both of them died during their trip. Links to the story are below.
As any parent knows and will tell you, nothing in the complete realm of human existence can be more completely and utterly destructive to one’s soul than losing a child. I have not had that happen and I am very grateful. But I know the fear, as do all parents I have ever known. I may not be as controlling of my kids as my wives have been, I may say ‘you have to let them go do this or that’. I am that father who said that is how it has to be to my wives. But make no mistake, for every time I have said that, and I bet for every other spouse who played the role of the one saying it’s ok to let them go, we knew we were gambling a bit. All of life is a bit of a gamble, sometimes greater odds, sometimes lesser. It’s a sad, sad moment when the odds go bad and something like this happens. The essay below says it better than I can, I encourage parents to read it.
So, why did I illustrate a quote about a dog? I didn’t draw this to say I hope he has a dog. I drew it because ‘blue’ can’t always be explained, even when it is so obvious, as in this case. The pain, the suffering, the what ifs, the if onlys, the guilt, the loss, the anger, the hopelessness, the fear, the emptiness. They can’t be listed out like that in a broken heart. They can’t be categorized and compartmentalized and logically explained one by one. I can imagine that is what one feels they must do when asked ‘why do you feel blue’.
Maybe it’s best to be like a dog, not ask why, even if we know what we think the answer will be, but just comfort and be.
A vintage napkin from 10 years ago. Drawn for my daughters and put in their lunches to take to High School.
Seems a bit harsh, but there is a very real regret I know I feel when I think about what I could have done vs what I actually did do over the years. I think there has been a victory or two, so I won’t be ashamed to die. But, just in case anyone is inclined to tell me I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, don’t worry, I am not. I am just saying I sometimes wish I had done more.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote By Horace Mann, 1796-1859, American Education Reformer. My daughters’ first school was named Horace Mann Elementary in San Jose, California.
Yesterday I heard of a friend who is depressed and had suicidal thoughts. Luckily she had already reached out for help from a good friend and had found a place to go to talk. Her circumstances seem to be the catalyst in this case, as opposed to someone who is clinically depressed. But either way it’s crucial for those in contact with those people to listen and be aware of hints, words, behaviors, that seem to indicate thoughts of suicide.
When I have come in contact with someone contemplating suicide I have always returned to this: If you are alive, there is hope. If you are dead, there is not. It doesn’t matter if you THINK there is hope. It doesn’t matter if you THINK things will get better. All that matters is that you ACT as if there is hope and that things will get better. Be an actor, pretend your way through it.
I don’t mean to be trite. I don’t mean you shouldn’t get help, of course you should. And I don’t mean you don’t eventually want to get to the place where you actually have hope and believe things will get better. But for now, you obviously do not think that. I can’t make you think it. But actors don’t have to believe, they just have to act. And acting is what will keep you alive until the help and hope comes about.
I am not talking about the pretending all is well when it isn’t. I am not talking about living a lie, living in abuse, living in unbearable circumstances. I am talking about acting out a set of steps that will keep you alive.
First step, admit it to someone who you think has the best chance of helping you. If that person doesn’t step up, keep going, find another person. Don’t give up, don’t stop until that person has appeared.
Drawn for my daughter and put in her lunch to be eaten at school. The lunch that is, not the napkin.
Ever notice how most everyone doesn’t want to die? Ever notice how a good portion of those same people are pissed off about some or all of their lives? Heraclitus noticed it over 2,600 years ago so it’s not a new phenomenon. I doubt it is going away throughout humanity. But I certainly think individuals can get rid of it in their lives if they so desire.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Heraclitus, 535 BCE – 475 BCE, Greek philosopher from Ephesus.
We have time travelled backward from yesterday, this quote is by Cato the Elder, who lived right smack dab in between Marcus Aurelius and Socrates.
Cato was a bit of an over achiever. He was a diplomat, politician, historian and a farmer. He had seen many a monument to people whom he, no doubt, felt were unworthy of the honor but for their station and influence in life.
His point is simple. Better to let people say you should be more famous than to say you are not worthy of the fame you have.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Cato the Elder, Roman Renaissance man (before the Renaissance), 234 BCE – 149 BCE
Throughout history up until the present day, why do so many people talk, argue, hate and kill over theology, doctrine, creed, denominations, interpretations, canons, divinity, hagiography, dogma, faith, communion, baptism, history, piety, revelation, orthodoxy, sacraments, sacredness, ritual, liturgy, relics, veneration, saints, martyrdom, and history?
Why is the world obsessed with the most shallow of pursuits as seen in popular culture?
Is there any real difference between the first two questions?
I have the same answer to both the first and second questions.
Because it’s easier than loving your neighbor.
That answer gives me the answer to my third question.
No
What are your answers and why?
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Drawing and questions by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English Writer
