Isobel: "Daddy, you're really lucky to have an Ipod."
Daddy: "Well, you'll get one too. You're just a little too young yet."
Isobel: "Chase is lucky to have one too."
Daddy: "You'll get one too Pick, you're just..."
Isobel: "And Mummy is lucky to have her Iphone."
Daddy: "I..."
Isobel: "You all have something for when the power goes out. You all have something to do. I don't have anything to do."
Daddy: "Well you'll..."
Isobel: "No, I don't have anything to do except sleep. Which sucks but is very good for you. It makes your bones and hair grow."
So here it is. At 44 years of age, I am a college grad...Holy shit. I always thought that as a musician, there was a certain cool factor involved when your kids tell their friends what you do...and there is. Same thing for a writer I guess but here's the rub Are your kids ever proud of what you do when it's all flashy and rock star? Do they look at you and say 'My Dad makes me proud' when you write a work of fiction? (or a weekly column) Maybe...I don't know.
What I do know is that the profession dare I say it, the career that I have chosen has made me something I didn't think possible...it has made me want to be a better person. I don't mean that I am a great person beyond reproach or improvement, just the opposite in fact. What I mean is that I have been a cocksure bass player and a half-assed writer but mostly a carbon blob working in sector 7g for most of my adult life and I have been resigned to being one of the bungled and botched. Teased by glimpses of greatness that were always just out of reach.
I have changed the briefs of the incontinent, I have held the hands of the lonely and the dying. I have fed the disabled and I have wiped away the tears of the demented and I have loved every minute of it. Somewhere in the midst of all of the bodily fluids and out and out weirdness, I found me...My first day of my first placement, Mrs. Narrator asked me what I thought of it and I told her I didn't know yet, ask me at the end of the week. Inside I had asked myself just 'what the fuck had I gotten myself into?'
It had sunk in, exactly what it was this job had entailed and I didn't know if I was capable of doing it, any of it. Learning about health care in a text book and putting them into taxes are two completely different things but the first resident I was given was a man I had known in my past and in his way he had remembered our meeting. I washed him I changed him, I held his hand when he was frightened, I laughed with him when he was funny and I sat with him in comfortable silence when his condition made it difficult for him to speak.
By the end of that first day, I was picked by the woman across the hall from my first resident. She said I had a kind face and she thought there should be more people sticking up for the people that can't do it for themselves anymore. I don't know if I am any kind of advocate for the elderly but it was nice to be thought of in that capacity.
By the end of that first week, Mrs. Narrator asked me again what I thought of it. I sat for a minute and collected all of the information that was racing around inside my head.I said "It feels like this is what I am supposed to be doing."
I have never worked in any sort of job where the smallest action, seemingly insignificant, can make a enormous difference in the well being of another person. Even in a band, though the folks were entertained, the day after they were on to the next thrill coming to town. In a factory, they only give a shit when you aren't there and even then not really.I went home every day from that first placement (and all the others afterward) knowing I had made a difference in people's life and they in mine. It was and is overwhelming. Things might have been very different had it not been for my first four-the first four reasons why I know that I made the right decision.
Ah but it is bittersweet...I met and befriended some amazing people along the way, classmates I will likely never see again and the saddest of all, the harsh reality of this career. All of the first four have since passed on. I am not sad though. I am happy for them that their struggles are over and I am honoured beyond words that I got to know them as well as I did and they have all taught me that the worst thing you can do is allow another person to struggle if you have the power to prevent it.
So sitting here on a Tuesday night, listening to Rain Dogs and wondering if my kids will be proud of me for what I've done I think they will one of these days...hell, I'm proud of me
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to finally clear the air. I have been the perpetrator of a terrible lie. For many years now, I have been telling you of Isobel and her beloved minions. I have even gone so far as to describe the minions to you as small yellow goggle eyed fellows who bow to Izzy's every whim. I also mentioned that i felt the minions were now turn of the century Russian peasants moaning and wailing at Isobel's commands But I have been set straight by the mighty dictator herself.
This past weekend, I was helping Isobel to dust her room. (if you listen close enough, you can hear my Mother howling with laughter at the prospect of me dusting anything) We had moved all of her trinkets and statues off of her bed shelves and sprayed down the Pledge. She gave it a generous wiping and I was getting ready to put the things back on the shelf when she interrupted me.
"Daddy, I need to put the minions back in the right order. I'll do it."
And she did. The minions were nothing as I had pictured them to be but this is straight from the little tyrant's mouth. These are the minions. Four terracotta warriors, a bust of FDR that looks like Mortimer Snerd and a small statue of a highlander that bears an uncanny resemblance to christ. Without further ado I give you the Minions...
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