Mental Health Dad

Football Camp

     As most of you know, My son Matthew is currently attending football camp.  This stemmed from a request that he made of us at the end of the last school year.  Eventhough I am still a paranoid father, I wish to share some tidbits as to how things are going.  To begin, football camp is only 1 week long.  It runs Monday thru Friday.  The only requirements for him to bring with him were:  Football cleats (shoes), and an athletic supporter.  Upon finding out that an athletic supporter means a jock-strap, not someone on the sidelines going; rah, rah, rah we hunted for one at the local everything market.  Imagine our surprise when we found out that they didn't carry the size that he needed.  We tried another store only to find out the same thing.  It wasn't until we went to the fifth and last possible place that we foung something that would work.  On a side note, the shoes we foung right away.  So Matts first day was filled with anxiety.  He was anxious to get started, and my wife and I were anxious that he would not break every bone in his body.  Every day the camp was 3 hours long.  An hour and a half into the first day, he calls home asking to come home.  Up to this point, my wife and I had spent about 2-3 hundred dollars outfitting Matt and registring him for the school season.  Needless to say, he was not coming home that day until he was finished.  Upon his coming home, he was in better spirits and had a positive outlook for the next day.  The rest of the week has gone by without incident and he is enjoying all that he is learning.  This caused me to reflect on something.  Was this a time to (let out the leash) a little and trust that my special boy has progressed to the next level in his development?  Or, am I just an overly concerned parent who would just be happy enclosing my son in a bubble for the rest of his life.  At times it is so hard to determine that line and when it needs to be crossed or not.  I hope that this true life story rings a bell with you and when you get the chance to decide to let go a little or grab on tight, that your heart will point you in the right direction.  To all like myself, keep up the good fight. 

Small Vacation

Hello all.  I just got back from a small vacation the family and I took in the state of Washington.  We had a great time not only for ourselves but with some of our extended family members as well.  We took my sister-in-law and her daughter with us and when we got up to our destination of Tacoma, we were to meet up with my sister-in-laws sons.  Taylor and Thomas are two great boys.  They both have great dispositions and I believe that they know what they want to do with their lives.  They seem to have direction, boundaries, and clear cut goals to get themselves where they want to be.  They could have an easier time of it though if their father wouldn't get in the way all the time, but that's a different story. 

     We started off by getting to the hotel in Tacoma and since we took two cars up there, we waited for my wife to get there after picking up Taylor and Thomas.  It was really nice to see them again.  The last time that I saw them was when they were just little boys.  Now, they are grown up teenagers and pretty good looking to the girls.  Anyway, my youngest son, Joseph and I went to a Seattle Mariners baseball game that night.  We had very good seats and we had a BALL!  No, we weren't able to actually catch a ball but it didn't matter none.  Let's put it this way, ( tickets: $76., parking: $15., food, food, and more food: $44., being thanked for having a really good time: priceless.). 

     The next day, all eight of us went to a water park in the Tacoma area.  We spent the day there and we had a blast as a family.  There were a few of us that enjoyed the sun a little too much though.  My wife, oldest son Matthew, and nephew Thomas all received major sunburns.  Matthew and I went on this one ride which almost drowned him and myself.  I forget the name of it now but the premis was that you were to sit on a giant blown up tube, one person facing in one direction and the other person in the other direction.  Then it was down the slide you went.  I normally don't like big long scary rides like that but this one was a lot of fun.  The biggest thrill of the whole day was seeing how well both my sons and my nephews got along with each other.  See, as well as my son Matthew being bipolar, my nephew Thomas is also bipolar.  My nephew Taylor also admitted that he might also be somewhere on the spectrum of bipolar.  No matter how you looked at it though, all four of the boys got along as if they were brothers and the best of friends.  There wasn't even one hint of a disagreement or an episode from any of them the whole time.  It was like all the planets in the cosmos came into alignment and the whole world was right for just once in time.  I can tell all you parents out there, If you get a chance to ever experience such ease or normalness in life, please take full advantage of it.  Photo it for documentation, and ascribe it to memory some how.  We all went home the next day but for me I relived every moment over and over in my head for I knew that that was to be the moment of time that I can truly say;  There was once a time that my family was normal. 

     In conclusion, let this little trip inspire all who read it to press on to develope your own moments in time such as these and know that there is always a glimmer of hope that one day we all can live rich filled lives where diseases and diagnoses can go by the wayside.  One day we all can say, finally, we are all as one.  Until that day, we are all sailing on different vessels to the same point in the sea.  It's not a race to see who gets there first, but rather to see who completes the race at all.  May the wind be at your backs always.