“Haven’t We Lost Enough?”
-Crosby, Stills and Nash
The other day my wife and I watched a camera recording of our family from over 35 years ago. There were various vignettes, as you can imagine, trips to different cities and countries with our two children: our daughter-the cutest little girl I’ve ever seen, and her older brother. As I watched these pictures for the next four hours, I thought of the fact that my wife was taking all the pictures. And, of course, she arranged the details of the trip-and everything else meaningful in our lives-like she has for over 50 years. Now, my children are adults. My son has his own young children. He is, by any possible measurement, one of the finest fathers on planet earth. And my daughter? Oh, didn’t I tell you? She’s perfect. As I watched these videos, two thoughts came crashing into my elder reality: where the hell were you, and what the hell were you thinking as you plowed through life with your self centered dreams of your ‘passions?’ In my case it was a wanna-be fire fighter-then Fire Commissioner. Later in life as a Disney executive after I created an attraction dedicated to fire fighting my wife wanted to ‘sit in the car’ during the opening ceremony. At the time I thought it was one of the cruelest, most disrespectful things she’s ever done. Now I understand completely. It was what that project represented: the pain of the past.
What a waste of time when your family was in front of you!
My own father left the family when I was six. He was even worse than me! You’d think I would have learned. But I didn’t. Some of us just repeat what we saw. And some of us do just the opposite..like my son. Some of us get it and some of us never do…until it’s long too late. Haven’t we lost enough? I know I have…still waiting for time to heal ‘all.’ Reminds me of a scene from a recent movie about the Alamo a Disney affiliate: Touchstone Pictures created in 2004. Twenty-six year old William Barrett ‘Buck’ Travis, the Commander, must give the news to the entire garrison that no help is coming from any other Texan troops; that the tiny group of 185 men will have to endure a final assault from 3,000 Mexican soldiers, meaning certain death for the entire garrison. He speaks to the entire assembled ragtag, brave solders of why he came to Texas: “ hopefully to ‘be a better’ man’ than he had been in the past-leaving some of his past shoddy behavior, especially to his wife and child: actions he was not proud of. He told the men that they were free to go if they chose- jumping over the wall at night to take their chances before it was too late. All of the men stayed but one. Afterward he looked in on Jim Bowie who was his older, more experienced co-leader with a reputation himself as a knife fighter-down in his bed and suffering from typhoid pneumonia. Both men had been at odds with each other during much of the siege. Bowie says to Travis: “I heard every word of what you said. “Good words. Very good words. Ya know, Buck, keep that up and in five years you just might be a great man.’ Travis answered, knowing that the end was coming: “I think I will have to be satisfied with who I am now.” I thought about that statement for a good while- about doing my best to make up for my own many transgressions in the first part of my marriage, and my absence from my children. Then I thought about the last 20 years of trying to be as Travis said: ‘ a better man.’ I can’t change the past. But I can continue to walk a new road to my future, hopefully binding up the wounds of those I hurt in the past. Looking back over where I fell does nothing. Some call it ‘reverse pride.’ I don’t know. I do know I don’t need to engage in it any more. I don’t remember Jesus Christ ever bringing up Mary Magdeline’s sins after he told her to: “go and sin no more.”
