50

So I turned 50 yesterday.  50! That seems like a milestone year. I had a great party with friends. My mom showed up, no brothers came. My sister, who lives in town, said happy birthday over Facebook along with my friends scattered around the world, or people I barely knew in high school.

I’m not surprised, really— or maybe I shouldn’t be surprised is more accurate. My birthday inconvenienced the family from day one. That’s what happens when a person is born at 3:30 am two days before Thanksgiving. Outside of the household, everyone oohs and aha over the little one— something to be grateful for. That is not the attitude inside the house— at least that has not been my observation.

There is so much to do during the week of Thanksgiving. How can they add a birthday party on top of that? What about when the birthday lands right on Thanksgiving Day? It’s clearly just too much to even think about.

So instead of my favorite German chocolate cake as a platform for the candle blowing out ceremony, I get candles stuck in a pumpkin pie. No matter what day it falls on, my family just said happy birthday and gave me some presents after the meal on Thanksgiving— everyone was there anyway. Why waste that convenience?

As for parties with friends? Forget about it! All of my friends were at their grandma’s houses eating turkey. So I never had a birthday party with my friends. I never got cards at school or any of that.

On my 16th birthday, another milestone, I felt like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles— no one even said “happy birthday” to me. That felt pretty good (not.)

Now I know that some years my parents put in more effort than others. Like the year I got a remote controlled R2-D2. That stands out in memory. Or the year we all got shigella from something we ate that week and had to be quarantined.

True story.

This year I felt the love from my friends— my chosen family. I’m grateful to them for the surprise they planned for me. I mean, I had to pick up the cake and buy some chicken— so I knew something was going on. The real surprise for me was that I found a group of people who genuinely care for each other. Some of them may have had to shift some stuff around, or skip a holiday party at their church or work. They did it. They were there. I meant enough to them that they made my birthday party a priority in their lives. I hope that they know how much I appreciate that.

I guess we don’t have to be stuck with the family that God gives us. We can make our own families as we go along.

FATHERHOOD PART II: Waiting for It

So after trying, testing, and getting some disappointing results that I just don’t want to talk about…

Jen and I decided that our best bet for parenthood came down to adoption. Of course we wanted the whole experience, not just to pick up some kiddos in the middle of their childhood lives and go on from that point. No, we wanted to be there from birth to as long as we all lived. Yeah—still with a bit of the selfish streak…I know. There it was though, adopting an infant or nothing at all. Of course many people have heard that, for the longest time, we thought that the option that we would have to live with was the “nothing at all” option. For nearly five years we waited on the list of LDS Family Services, hoping to hear that a birthmommy had chosen us…but no word came. As my wife came closer to 40, we thought more and more that it just wasn’t going to happen. We made up our minds that if we didn’t get a child placed with us by the time she was 40, then we would be a childless couple who traveled the globe and lives lonely lives…like Julia Child.

We were in Hawaii in August of 2009, for Jen’s 20th high school reunion, when we received a call from LDS Family Services. A special young lady, her boyfriend, and his mom were coming in to choose a couple to raise their child. For many reasons, none of them important to this story, they would not be able to keep the child. Though they didn’t really want to do it, they were faced with the choice of either giving the child up for adoption, or risk the state social services taking the baby and putting it in a foster home. They chose the option of hand-picking the baby’s parents. We were among the few from which they would choose. About a week after we returned from our vacation, we heard that they wanted to meet with us.

On our first meeting, the birth family had a tiny request to make: they wanted us to name the baby Jesse…after the birthdaddy’s brother who had recently died. We felt their plea, and appreciated the sentiment, but after years of dreaming and hoping, we already had our heart set on a name. This was a name that no one had taken from us for their own children. This was a name which we coveted because it was a) fairly common; b) not so common that he would share it with seven kids in his class at school; c) the name of all of the best football players. We wanted to pair this name with my first name, thus branding him as my firstborn son. Because of our shared Hawaii connection though, we promised to give the boy the Hawaiian equivalent of “Jesse” for his second middle name. We didn’t want the English to Hawaiian translation, because it was largely phonetic, and didn’t convey the meaning of the name. The name “Jesse” is Hebrew for “The Lord Is.” That is a name of testimony, of conviction, and of a love for God. We chose the Hawaiian name Kahaku. We decided that we had waited long, and he rated at least four names.

The birthmommy used to live in Hawaii, Jen grew up in Hawaii, I loved Hawaii…it was a match made in some island paradise. By they time we left that happy meeting, we knew that she chose us to parent her coming soon baby boy.

Yes, we were pretty certain that the baby would come out with boy parts. Were we 100% certain? No…but who is? We moved forward with the idea that all of the doctor’s data pointed to a baby boy, and we bought blue things. We prepared the baby’s room with planets, stars, a crib, a changing table, a book shelf with his own copy of Where the Wild Things Are, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (among other titles.) We had showers that provided play pens, car seats, strollers, clothes, diapers, and more clothes. I had nothing but dreams of watching him play sports, teaching him to read, taking him to the zoo, and going camping. I had embraced the idea of fatherhood, but with no practical experience. But first and foremost I had to get the boy in the house.

The birth mom called us a couple of weeks shy of her due date and told us that her water had broke. By “a couple of weeks” I mean to say five weeks. That was the beginning of the adventure. We hoofed it down to the hospital (coincidentally, the same one where my mother had birthed me back in the day), and sat down to wait. We listened to his heartbeat on the monitor, and listened to the doctors while they read a litany of complications which they expected: underdeveloped lungs, downs syndrome, complications brought on by the birthmommy’s epilepsy, birth stress taking its toll on the baby’s tiny, underdeveloped body…

The list went on and only caused my anxiety to grow. So…this was parenthood. I knew that every moment wouldn’t have glamour and joy…but I had hoped for a little glamour and joy before nausea set in for the long haul. The baby’s heartbeat monitor, though never strong, had strong moments before slowing down and fading…only to come up strong again to start a new cycle. For eight hours I sat worrying that neither baby, nor birthmommy, would survive the day. Finally, after having the poor girl labor on her hands and knees for hours (to relieve the stress on the baby)…after the sun had given up and went down…after most of the night had passed into memory…the doctors decided to go in and take the baby before he sustained more damage.

At five a.m., on October 4, 2009, Troy Robert Kahaku Justus came into the world. My first impression was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy. The birth family chose us for multiple reasons, but I feel that the baby made his choice before he came into this world. He chose his birthparents, and he chose us to be his parents to raise him, care for him, teach him, and nurture him. In one moment I ditched the last vestiges of my anti-parenthood sentiments. I looked at him, stared at him, wondered at him…I knew that I would never be complete if he were not my son.

So began the last part of my journey from wanting to be a parent, to waiting for fatherhood, to becoming his father for time and all eternity.

Home

The word “home” carries with it such comforting connotations. After a hard days work, I just want to go “home.” After a long and adventurous vacation, I just want to get “home” to my own bed. When I sleep at night, in my crazy dreams starring my wife and family, friends, and the occasional special guest star (Alan Alda has appeared more often than any other) and myself, I dream of “home.” While I lived in the Dominican Republic my waking and sleeping thoughts often led me to my “home” with my father, brothers, and sister.

Oddly enough, the “home” that I see doesn’t reflect my current living situation. Even though I love my house, my wife, my cat, my birds, and my brothers, I dream (as in asleep and dreaming) of another home. I dream of a home in a quiet neighborhood with a drive-in theatre at the top of the street. I reminisce about the big tree in the backyard where I could climb up high and escape the world below. I see the home with a dog in the backyard, and many lost Star Wars action figures under the big bush in the front yard. I dream of the home where I grew up in Lakewood, Colorado.





More than ever I find myself daydreaming over this home. It wasn’t just a three bedroom, one bathroom house that six kids and my dad occupied. This structure served as a person factory: a place that manufactured six responsible, mature, adults…okay maybe two or three, but a 50% success rate is pretty high in the research and development field.

My Dad started the mortgage on his house back in 1968. Real estate back then showed a different face than it does today. Though his monthly rates varied, they never topped over $100. As our family grew from four, to five, to six, to seven, and eventually to eight people, we learned to make do with the limited space. Two bunk beds sat in one bedroom, and two beds in the other (Anna’s room). The brother who slept in the room with the baby (Anna) was the brother who had to get up the earliest. I had a paper route for a couple of years, so I occupied that bed for a while.

When my Dad and Mom split, all six of us stayed with Dad. Mom told us that Dad was crazy possessive about the house, and didn’t want her changing a thing about it. During the 1980’s and 90’s he had a couple of opportunities to remarry, but when talk turned to selling the house to make room for the new additions to the family he called off the engagements. I always thought that he was over-attached to the house; I didn’t know that he made a salary of $12,000.00 a year—and that made us poor.

When Dad did remarry in 1999, I questioned whether or not he would actually make the vows. I asked him what he planned on doing with the house. He said that Larry and Darin would live there, and he would move into his new wife's house. That’s when I knew that he had really decided to get married: to leave his home—unthinkable.

I know the reason why I think so much on this home these days: I am selling it. My dad died last October and I have the dubious honor of being his chosen representative for the estate. Brad came down from Alaska and put a lot of time and energy into cleaning up the house. We had it on the market for less than 72 hours before we got a good bid. I accepted the bid and now we are working towards closing the deal.

I have mixed feelings: on the one hand I've had a lot of stress dealing with the end-game of my father’s financial life. I know that we need to sell the house, and I am relieved to see that it has gone so quickly in this slow real estate market. On the other hand, this is the home of my childhood. I stand at the base of the big tree and wonder that I ever dared to climb so high. I look at the yard and think of all the fun of playing with the dogs of my life, and my Star Wars guys. My kids will never know the joy of this home…so I will have to teach them the joy of our home—the home where we live. Hopefully they will base their dreams in that home.

Still…I am going to have the bushes removed in the front: I want my Star Wars men back.