Like Riding a Bike

I’m grateful for a busy week. I’m grateful for accepting what I need to. I’m grateful for seeing when I need to ease off. I’m grateful for slowing down and being a little lazy. I’m grateful for what came before and grateful for where I am now. I’m grateful to be sober today.

song of the week:

Knowing me, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for this song to ascend to sotw status. This 1982 gem by Patrice Rushen might be remembered from a scene in the very excellent movie “Big.” Tom Hanks has been magically transformed into a 12-year old in a grown-up body and not surprisingly, has rapidly conquered the executive ranks at a leading toy manufacturer. Of course, a grown-up woman has fallen in love with boy-in-a-man’s body Tom Hanks and is just realizing her predicament when she goes back to his Soho loft. She ends up gleefully and shoelessly jumping on the bed as the saxophone solo in this song comes up (right around the 3:00 minute mark). The camera pulls away and you watch the two of them jumping on the bed through the loft window, their faces locked in laughter. To me, that looked (looks) like true love.¹

When I lived in DC and was often walking home from events late in the evening, this song was a staple on the playlist that was simply called “Walking.” It’s a good song for those long walks when you’re thinking of all the things that might have been and wondering which, if any of them, could ever actually spring to life again.²

It’s been a strange and hard three weeks since my dad died, this is the first time I’ve really tried writing since then. I’m not necessarily great at describing or identifying feelings and emotions, but what I’ve mostly felt is a heavy, heavy weight that has descended on me. When I was younger, the passing of grandparents, the end of relationships—those feelings were much closer to the surface and provoked much more obvious emotions. This just feels like a heavy, dark weight.

A lot of the time, I just feel weirdly shut down. I struggle to find words and complete sentences sometimes. I’m very tired and even small things entail a lot of effort. I’m pretty familiar with the feelings associated with the onset of depression; the listlessness, the general apathy, the self-doubt and irritability. Those symptoms regularly appear, on at least an annual basis. This is definitely a bonus visit.

One thing that is a sign of progress: At no point during this process, has the idea of drinking become palatable. I’ve heard so many stories of relapse driven by personal losses; how people with a fair amount of sobriety turn to that old, very familiar companion when the intense feelings of grief, loss and fear show up unexpectedly. My mom asked me at some point during the week of Dad’s funeral, and the look of relief that washed over her face when I told her that it wasn’t really a temptation anymore was pretty telling.³

I gave the eulogy at Dad’s funeral and I spent a good chunk of that week driving around Iowa City and greater Johnson County—trying to decode my own thoughts and feelings. Just like I did when I was 17. I found myself on a lot of the same highways that I often drove back then, the music still blasting. When I was 17, I would basically get myself pretty lost until I found my bearings or some familiar landmark, and could head back home. I did the same thing that week as I tried to figure out what I would say about my dad.

When the wheels came off for me, when my marriage finally crumbled under the weight of my alcoholism and the Jekyll/Hyde aspects of my personality, I called my dad. I remember calling the afternoon I had moved out of the house, my son mournfully watching me hastily throw my possessions into the car and drive off. I was pretty shattered, lost and very scared. I told my dad that I needed help, that I couldn’t control my drinking, that I had ruined my life.

Dad listened quietly and immediately suggested that I call his friend Tom—a recovering alcoholic with 15 years. Tom became my first sponsor and helped me navigate one of the roughest periods of my life. I remember calling him from in front of my ex-wife’s house, I remember so many evenings where my distress and fear melted away as he talked about how he had gotten sober. FYI—no one gets sober under easy circumstances.

The more I spent the week reflecting, the more I realized that the early drafts of the eulogy were pretty self-centered and self-involved; I wanted to say something that conveyed as much of the essence of my dad as possible, not just catalogue my feelings about his loss. One night, as I was getting lost on what used to be called Rohret Road (sp?), the signature memory of my dad popped into my head.

I got a bike for my fifth birthday. Not just any bike, a cool, black Schwinn Typhoon. One problem is that my birthday is at the end of November—not great bike-riding weather. There was zero chance I was going to wait until spring to ride that bike and my dad was definitely game. We bundled up and headed out into the windy, blustery weather to learn how to ride a bike.

I’ve had the privilege of teaching a couple of youngsters to ride a bike, and will tell you one of the secrets: It involves trickery and deception. You see, as a kid, you feel reliant on the parent holding the bike steady and pushing it forward. I can remember my kids asking me if I was still holding on as I ran alongside them, panting to keep up. “Sure,” I would lie to them. Then I would shift to the truth: “You’re doing great, you can do this.” And soon, they were.

I remember my dad getting me on the bike and getting it rolling. He had a hand on the handlebars and a hand on the back of the seat and he steadied the bike, and held it upright, as we moved forward and I learned how to pedal. Soon, he was only holding on to the seat in back and I couldn’t really see him, he was beyond the arc of my peripheral vision. Then, he shifted his hand from holding the back of the seat to the small of my back and he was pushing me forward. All the time, he was panting words of encouragement, telling me I could do this, to keep pedaling, to always look forward, not back. I was furiously pedaling and learning how to balance, but still believing I was dependent on that hand pushing me forward.

I started to focus on actually riding the bike, could feel the cold, cold wind on my face, the excitement of being able to balance, and the thrill of going fast! But where was Dad? I shouted out, “Dad, are you there?” I didn’t know if he was still wordlessly pushing me along, I was wearing a thick winter coat, so I couldn’t tell if he was still pushing. I craned my neck trying to see if he was back there. I spied him ten feet behind me, realized I was actually riding the bike, on my own and promptly crashed.

But I knew what had just happened, I had learned how to ride a bike.

My dad helped me up, brushed me off and readied the bike for me to re-mount and we were off again. He was holding the seat again, then the hand shifting to the middle of my back, then I wasn’t quite sure who was moving the bike, me or him, but I knew there was no looking back. It was about pedaling, staying balanced and always looking forward. I had learned to ride a bike. I spent the rest of that cold, gray, wintry afternoon gleefully riding my new bike. For sure, the smile was literally frozen on my face when darkness finally drove me inside.

That was the story I told at Dad’s funeral, about him teaching me to ride a bike. About how I could always count on him to stand (or run) beside me, how he was always willing to help, to always seemed to have an answer. I realized how much he had taught me, and way, way more important things than just riding a bike. I realized just how much he had meant to me and just how much I would miss him.

My kids also spoke at the funeral, did the most amazing and beautiful job sharing about what their grandfather had meant to them. Then it was my turn. I was very nervous as I ascended the pulpit. Even though I’ve done a lot of public speaking and am usually pretty comfortable, this was very different: My hands were shaking and my breathing was shallow as I organized my notes. I looked out at the church, full of Dad’s friends and colleagues. I looked at my mom and wondered how she put one foot after the other, I looked at my own grandson, little B, and hoped that he’d have some good stories to tell about me one day.

I took a deep breath and launched into it. I think I did a good job and only came close to crying twice. I talked about Dad, about what he had meant to people as a husband, father, friend and teacher, I read notes his students had written about how he had changed their lives, launched their careers, and the more I talked about him, the stronger and more confident I felt. His calm, “we can do this” energy began to fill me. I felt peace and love as I remembered him.

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot over the last few weeks. The sudden shock of his loss and the grief that accompanies the realization that he’s gone weighs quite a bit on me and still casts a long shadow. Like always, it’s the practice of gratitude that helps me through the dark days. When I force myself to find things to be grateful for, well, that’s often when the magic happens. Well, maybe it’s not magic and more like painful personal growth, but it’s gratitude that propels me forward and it’s pretty easy to find things to be grateful for in my dad’s life: The things he taught me, the way he loved me and my brother, the way he loved his grandchildren, the pictures of him holding his great-grandchildren, the way he was always there for the people he loved, the way he was always willing to help. As I sift through the memories of my dad, I think I’ve come to realize what it is I’m most grateful for:

I can still feel his hand in the middle of my back—always pushing me forward.

Happy Friday.

1. I’m aware it’s a movie and they were actors.

2. I get that resurrection is a very, very complex thing with some pretty surprising results. I always wondered what it would be like to be Lazarus and come sputtering back to life.

3. For those who think that people are not frightened of our drinking…