The Job Conundrum

When I was 29, I was mad at God, so I wrote a play.

There’s something about turning 30 that winds up being your first, hard look at your own mortality. You realize, as your youth begins to wane, that you won’t be here forever. You can sort of get away with pretending that death only comes to other people and it probably won’t ever come to you. But 30 is a crack of lightning that wakes you to the truth that this whole thing isn’t slowing down and there’s only so much time to do what you’re going to do, to become who you’ll become.

So I gave myself the challenge: I was going to write a play about God while I was still young, giving myself the deadline of the day before my 30^th birthday to finish it. It was meant to be a metatextual attempt to understand God and why he allows so much terrible in the universe.

I focused on Job. If you’re unfamiliar with the bible story, God and The Devil make a bet that Job, a righteous man, will turn from God if God allows tribulation into his life. A lot of awful shit happens to Job, including the death of his children. He stays more or less faithful (but not without some questions); he passes the test. God blesses him for it, including riches and compensatory replacement children.

This made me crazy. How could God do this? How do replacement children make up for the children Job lost? Is that how it works? Who did God think he was?

I finished the play, just under the wire. It’s a little clunky and derivative, but I’m still kind of proud of it. Though I was in preliminary talks with a producer at one point, it was never performed.

And no, of course I had no idea that I would lose my own children five years later.

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Today I get to write the entry I’ve been trying to write for at least three years.

In 2016, we began the journey of foster parenting with a four-year-old named Christopher. In 2018, his biological sisters, Chloe and Chelsea, also came to live in our home. And last summer, August of 2021, we officially adopted all three children.

A handful of rigid laws have restricted us from sharing our kids’ names or images over the years, but now that they’re adopted, we’re finally free to share.

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Chloe Bear is 15. She’s finishing up her freshman year at the high school from Freedom Writers. She’s quiet and private and she loves animals and Harry Styles. She’s been vegetarian for over a year and, about a month ago, decided to go all-in on veganism. Unlike most girls of her generation, she’s laser-focused on getting her driver’s license as soon as possible. She’s interested in social justice and reads books about murder.

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Chelsea Bear is 14. Unlike her sister, her favorite food is steak. Her dream is to be a rich and famous actress with a giant house, a swimming pool and a waterslide. Her favorite musician is Taylor Swift and her favorite books are teen drama graphic novels by Raina Telgemeier. She makes friends easily and feels that the social media restrictions Carey and I force on her are unreasonable.

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Christopher Bear is 9. He’s the most buoyant, joyful kid I know. His favorite activity is video games that involve building and destroying. His COVID lockdown hair continues to grow and is now the longest of anyone in our house. He plans to stop when it reaches the same length as Elsa’s from Frozen. He sleeps to the sound of thunderstorms playing on a loop. When he’s happiest, he does a dance that involves skipping around and smacking his own butt.

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It was easier to rail on the idea of God providing compensatory replacement children before I had three of my own. I love my kids and I wouldn’t trade them. And I’m not naïve; I know they wouldn’t be in our lives without the loss of our triplet boys.

But the question I’m not supposed to ask is: “Was it worth it?”

The truth is my six children live in conflicting realities and I’m grateful I don’t have to choose. Call it Job’s Conundrum, I guess. Did we really need the soul crushing trauma of losing Rudyard, Desmond and Oscar to enjoy the blessing of Chloe, Chelsea and Christopher?

Is there any value in asking the question?

As I’ve said before, the universe determined, despite my early protests in literally every case, that my wife and I would be parents and the number of children would be three. Resistance is futile. Give up and give in. All your base are belong to us.

So that’s it. I guess it’s exactly as complicated as that. Content yourself with messy (and don’t kid yourself – messy is what we are). Love your family. Rejoice in the blessings of three kids brought to our home through trauma and tragedy.

And one day, in a thousand years’ time if you believe in that sort of thing, when we’re all slipping up and down the silver-paved byways of the sweet hereafter AllNow 7D supercontext, we’ll look up the Job residence on Heavenly GPS. Drive on over, knock on the door.  Swap stories, meet his kids. Introduce him to our six.

Pour drinks. Raise a glass. “To the Job conundrum,” we’ll say. “To the great mess. To being together at last.”

“It all worked out in the end.”

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Children Who Exist and Children Who Don’t

A friend and I were talking recently about fatherhood. He mentioned that, before he had children, he’d always had a feeling that there was a part of himself that would be incomplete if he missed out on it. He knew it had to be part of his life, part of his journey.

I told him I couldn’t relate to that at all.

In fact, my pre-children mindset was just the opposite. I felt a profound burden to not have children, to not bring more people into this. I felt that the Earth has been asking us for the last several generations to slow down, chill out, give her a break with all the kids. We need to catch our breath with the destruction of the environment. We need to get a handle on racism and poverty. We’ve had our foot on the gas so long that we’ve failed to realize the engine isn’t working anymore and we’re flooding it. 

MORE KIDS MORE KIDS MORE KIDS.

My friend, like me, is a foster parent. He has biological children of his own, but also made the decision with his wife to foster-to-adopt. “I feel you,” he said. “It makes sense. Children in the system, that’s where the need is. Loving and taking care of who’s already here.”

“That’s my thing,” I said. “I want to contribute to the healing and the building. I had three children that were biologically mine and they died the day they were born. They existed and I loved them and I still love them. But they were a surprise. And I couldn’t help it, I wondered if they would wind up hurting the world more than helping.”

Then he dropped the bomb: “I love [adopted child] as much as [biological children]. I didn’t think that was possible, but it is. If I’d known that, I wonder if I’d have made the choice to have biological children at all.”

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I’m writing this in 2020, on the ninth birthday of Rudyard, Desmond and Oscar Bear. These annual entries have become letters to the future, a check-in to be rediscovered later.  Here’s what’s happening as of this moment, Star Wars opening crawl-style:

Turmoil! The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged, terrorized, quarantined and suffocated the global community.

In America, George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, was killed at the hands of panicked and angry police officers, sparking protests, riots and unrest, further polarizing a nation at war with itself.

All of this is presided over by a corrupt President who, most recently, teargassed peaceful protesters to clear a path for a photo op of him holding a bible in front of a church….

Maybe these are the ashes, the fertilizer that will one day accommodate the seeds of new life and new hope. Maybe this is a ramping-up to ultimate destruction. Too soon to tell.

But before any children of my own existed, this is the world I didn’t want to bring them into. I didn’t want to burden them with it, or it with them. Back when my children were a possibility, a concept that I could say “no” to, saying “no” made the most sense to me.

But sometimes there are surprises. And sometimes those surprises turn out to be spontaneous triplet boys. And when the switch happens, when children transition from ideas to flesh and blood, the whole thing changes. “Should they exist?” Asked and answered. 

Yes, they should.

I still believe in Heaven for Beginners, which means I believe that the Bear Boys are looking at all of this with perfect clarity and understanding and love. Love for me and my wife and our three foster children. Love for George Floyd. And Derek Chauvin. And Donald Trump. And everyone everywhere for all time always.

And maybe they’ve been spared all of this. Maybe it’s a mercy. Maybe there’s some sort of cosmic right-ness to birthday candles on our mantle rather than birthday candles on three cakes today. Fuck that, but maybe.

But we’re having the conversations in our home that we would’ve had with our boys, had they made it. And not to get too creepy, but I sometimes sort of feel my boys guiding us through it. Look, I know, go ahead and eye-roll, but no kidding around: I want their perfect perspective on Coronavirus and privilege and BLM and the environment and every so often I wonder if they’re helping to give me a glimpse of what’s good and true. Maybe, in my better moments, I get to be their voice.

I’m glad they existed. I’m glad they weren’t an idea I said No to. I’m glad they made the jump from conceptual to literal and are teaching my wife and I how to best love the three flesh-and-blood children in our home, right here and now.

But more than any of that, today, right now, I wish they’d lived.

Happy Whatever Day

Happy Avoiding Facebook Day.

Happy Rehearsing Your Response to ‘Happy Father’s Day’ Day.

Happy Uncomfortable Pauses That End With ‘How’s Your Wife Holding Up?’ Day.

Happy Getting Your Story Straight When Asked If You Have Any Kids Day.

Happy Politely Declining The Father’s Day Gift/Special/Award At Stores/Restaurants/Church Day.

Happy Nodding And Shrugging When Loved Ones Tell You What A Great Father You Are/Were/Would’ve Been Day.

Happy Being Happy For Other Fathers Day.

Happy One-Year-Til-Next-Father’s-Day Day.

Happy Avoiding Patronizing Articles And Blog Entries Like This One Day.

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A fast note to other dads who have lost, because, damn it, this is our day too: you’re on my mind. If you’re anything like me, Father’s Day isn’t something you look forward to, it’s something you sort of wait out. You don’t want to abolish the day altogether, you just want to cue the music and flash the Oscar speech sign because it’s running long: WRAP IT UP.

Maybe you’ve just lost your child or children and this is your first Father’s Day and all you see is ocean in every direction.

Maybe you lost your child decades ago, but you find yourself stealing a minute alone for the one who should be here but isn’t.

Maybe you have other living children and you love them fiercely and you love this day, but it still stings.

Maybe it’s not a child you lost, but rather a wife or a parent or a sibling and the whole Father’s Day idea seems sort of off, particularly this year.

To you: Happy Whatever Day. On a lonely day like today, I’m glad you’re in the world because it means someone else knows how I feel. Maybe that’s a selfish way to look at it, but I’m going to cut myself some slack because, eh, it’s Whatever Day and we all deserve a break.

35

Just a quick one before I head off to bed:

Today I turned 35.  I”m not entirely sure when “mid-life” begins, but, for me, I hope it’s not yet because I’ve way too much to do and way too much to look forward to.  It was a good day, which I was able to spend surrounded by good friends and a wife I clearly don’t deserve.

I’ve received a few nice gifts and a few fun birthday wishes from various loved ones, but I’d be remiss if I failed to mention my very favorite gift of all: three little nameless someones who I’m eager to meet later this year.

Thanks for reading.   If you follow this spot regularly, I deeply appreciate your indulging my rants and rambles and I’m grateful you’re taking this hugely weird journey with my wife and me.

“Mid-life”?  Psh.

Baby, I’m just getting started.

– Jeremy, 2011

A Better World

Carey has wanted to have a child for several years and I’ll admit openly here that I was the holdout. I had grand ideas about the ethics of bringing children into this world, contributing to the imbalance of wealth and resources. Maybe I’ll get into more of that in a later post, but suffice it to say, I felt burdened about whether or not having children of our own was the “right” thing to do.

And, of course, I had serious doubts about my own parenting abilities.  I’ve already talked about that a good bit and I’m sure there’ll be loads of posts to come on the topic.

But the third big reason for hesitating was pretty straightforward and, let’s face it, as common as crabgrass: I looked at the world around me and thought, “do I really want to throw an innocent child into this mess?”

Less than an hour ago, I read the news and listened to our President give an address: Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Does it mean a better world, a safer world?  I don’t know.  Probably not.  It’s not the sort of thing I understand as well as I should, so it would be silly for me to offer too many opinions on it.  As a rule, I avoid most political discussions because, while my feelings on political matters are fairly strong, I usually regret spouting off about them.

But I will say this: Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are dead.  And that makes me feel a little better about bringing our three boys into this world.

I’m proud of my country and I’m happy and grateful to be an American citizen.  I know it’s not hip to say something like that and there’s nothing more out-of-style than patriotism in these troubled times, but I can’t help it.  I do love the United States and, at this moment, I’m proud of our military for employing the skill, courage and intelligence to do what they did today.  One day I’ll tell my sons what happened when they were still in their mommy’s tummy and how fortunate they are to be defended by such brave men and women.

And to those in power, particularly those responsible for today: thank you.  On behalf of my family, it means an awful lot that you take our safety so seriously, that you would pursue so doggedly those who want to put an end to us.  There’s a lot we agree on and a lot we don’t, but today I appreciate your wisdom.

God bless.

Dad Catalog

Baby, I’m a lot of things.  And “cool” ain’t one of ’em.

I’ve been rolling it over and over in my brain for, well, years probably.  “If I ever become a father, what sort of father will I be?”  Options are limitless and I suppose you more or less get to choose up front, don’t you?

Arty Hipster Dad
“Listen, kids: CREATE and EXPERIENCE.  Everything you do is fuel and fodder, dig?  Be fabulous and incandescent.  Leave your mark, wherever you go, whatever you do.  YOU ARE ART.”

Coach Dad
“Gang, it’s 5 AM, get up!  That 10k isn’t going run itself and according to my watch, you’re gonna need to double-time it.  Hustle hustle! Losers sleep in… you’re not losers, are you?”

Churchy Dad
“My concern is that another Wii game will cut into your volunteer time at the shelter.  Have you prayed about this?  By the way, how’s Habakkuk coming?  Tough book!”

Vice Dad
“You’re gonna find that a hearty, red stout mixes well with menthols.  Just a real nice bouquet, know what I mean?  No?  Fine, here’s your pacifier back, y’lightweight.  Ho! S’midnight, let’s see what’s cookin’ on Cinemax.”

Drill Sergeant Dad
“Oh, you want dessert, Mr. A-MINUS?  Do you think MINUSES are reasons to celebrate?  And by the way, you call that a crease?  Google “proper-way-to-iron-a-pair-of-pants”, you dirty-hippie-with-an-A-minus!”

Mushy Softy Dad
“We’re a family, you know?  A family.  We complete each other.  We lift each other up.  Treasure these moments we have, kids.  They’re precious…  THEY’RE ALL PRECIOUS, JUST LIKE ALL OF YOU.”

Tough Love Dad
“I know re-shingling the roof in mid-July with no sunscreen seems like an extreme consequence.  I do, I get it.  But you know the rules about talking without permission after 8:00.  Hey, don’t cry: if we don’t honor our own system, what are we?”

Freebird Dad
“Hey, I’m not here to lecture you like some kind of square.  You want to jump naked into traffic, who am I to stop you?  We make our own consequences, you know?  We’re all just passengers in the Ship O’ Life, kiddo.”

Power Trip Dad
“Because I’m your father, that’s why.  And if you ask me that again, you’re going to experience something horrible and arbitrary.  Also, call me ‘sir’.”

Creepy Buddy Dad
“You guys cool with me tagging along? If you’re thinking R-rated movie, y’know, I can totally get us in.”

Political Pundit Dad
“Hey, I wanted to go to DisneyLand as much as you!  Know why it’s not happening?  Well, it’s a long story, but it has to do with tax breaks and Bill Clinton.  Think I’m wrong?  Go ahead, look it up.  I’ll wait.”

Hands-On Dad
“You’re giving a book report in front of the class tomorrow?  Why didn’t you say anything?  Hang on, let me cancel a couple of meetings.  Is the video camera charged?  What time should I be there?”

Hands-Off Dad
“Heh?  Oh, good, happy birthday, then.  Whatever, just take what you want out of my wallet and have a blast, I don’t know.  Check with your mother.”

Old Salt Dad
“You morons with your LOL and OMG and BBQ and what all.  In my day, we had fax machines and Pac-Man!  And that was plenty!”

But of all of the options on the table, I suppose “Cool Dad” is the one I’m most committed to avoiding.  I don’t really ever remember being cool and I can’t imagine starting anytime soon.  At some point, these kids are going to have friends and I can’t quite imagine overhearing “your dad is so cool!” And if I do, I think I’ll wince a little.

Thing is, thanks to my upbringing, I have concerns.  I don’t know how else to say it: I had great parents.  And, man, that’s a lot of pressure.

My dad?  Co-coached the little league team I was on.  Never missed a game, a school play, a presentation or a parent-teacher conference.  He took the time to teach me what riding a bike was all about and he threw pop-ups to me in the back yard until I wasn’t scared of catching them anymore.  Discipline was fast and appropriate when I was being a moron and when I wasn’t, he trusted me to make good decisions.

Mom?  Same thing.  She was fully available and invested in me and my sisters.  She was fun and wise and hilarious and proud of me.  She reminds me now how many mistakes she made, but I don’t remember any of them.

Can I do that?  I don’t know, man, I’m pretty distracted and weird.  Arbitrary crap drives me crazy and I can be an awfully difficult human being to live with.

Which brings me back to “cool”.  If these three are going to be popular and confident people, it’ll be despite their screwball father.  I think I’ll expect a lot of them, maybe too much.  And, at one point or another, I’ll likely be every dad I listed at the start of this post.

And one day a friend of one of my children will be over at our house.  They’ll ask me if it’s okay to do something ridiculous and unsafe and I’ll tell them No Way.

And as I walk away, I’ll hear the friend of one of my children say, “your dad is so lame.”

And I’ll probably grin.  Because, yeah, that’s the stuff.

Jumping Beans

Tuesday, for the first time, I heard their heartbeats. But let me get back to that.

Last week, Dr. Chao, our OB, had told me, in no uncertain terms, “you need to be at the first high-risk-pregnancy-specialist appointment with your wife. If your work won’t let you go, you need to call in sick.  It’s important.” Fortunately, work was amenable, so, Tuesday morning, we headed to the Magella Medical Group in Long Beach.

It’s where you go when you’re pregnant with a disease or a disorder that puts you at risk.  Or pregnant with a child with a disease or disorder that puts him/herself at risk.  Or if there’s anything non-standard about anything having to do with your pregnancy.  Like, say, you’re 53 and find out you’re carrying a litter of pumas.

Or, say, 34, with Lupus, carrying triplets.

It’s tricky how they set these appointments up.  They spend the first 40 minutes or so filling you in on the 1,000 Reasons You Need To Worry.  Doctor Tith was extremely warm and helpful, but she didn’t shy away from the truth.  Fact is, any or all of our children could have CP.  Or Down Syndrome. Or some sort of mental handicap.  Or they could be sharing placentas and starving each other.  Or choking each other.  And, of course, for many of these issues, there are tests.  The tests can tell you within a 60% certainty whether your child has an 8% chance of having some disorder that’s 28% fatal.  Of course, you can take a more invasive test, which will give you 85% certainty, but you’ll increase your chances of miscarrying or delivering early by 13%, but only so early that your chances of it being fatally early are 38%.  Or some ridiculous combo thereof.

So, great.  Thanks everyone.  Consider us informed.  We feel way better.

Needless to say, halfway through this consult, I was convinced that at least one kid has some sort of fatal disease, the second one is going to be born with roughly half the organs it needs to sustain itself , and the third?  Oh, the third one’s fine, but s/he’s probably going to wind up a vampire when s/he’s 21.

I know my wife did way better than I did, but my swimming brain did at least take away a handful of important pieces of information.  Among them:

• Strong heartbeats= good
• 3 sacs = good
• 3 placentas = good
• The fact that these triplets are spontaneous, as opposed to IVF babies = moderately safer

So they took us in for the big ultrasound.  Triplets meant we’d already hit the fertility jackpot.  It was time to yank the lever again and find out what was heretofore unknown: are any of these goofballs sharing a placenta?  If so, that doesn”t necessarily spell disaster, but Tith was straight with us: we  should be hoping for 3 placentas.

Ultrasound began and we asked the tech, whose name is Michelle.  Michelle confirmed it: “Yes, I see three placentas.”

Finally, some friggin’ good news for a change.

And it was strange.  Here, only 11 weeks in, and they already seem to have different personalities.  Onscreen, Baby A swatted something in front of its little alien head.  Baby B kicked and flipped and did what it could to kung fu my wife’s innards. Baby C (who Chao calls The Lazy One) lounged up top in its amniotic hammock, irritated to have been bothered.

Jumping beans.

Michelle hit the vox and, out of nowhere, a very fast, very strong heartbeat filled the room, overpowering Love and Rockets’ So Alive, which had been playing on muzak. Baby A: 173 bpm.  Looking good.

Baby B: 173 bpm.  Very strong and looking good.

Baby C: 173 bpm. Everybody’s looking good.  Our kids have heartbeats.

In the space of a few moments, the majority of Tith’s concerns turned out to be just fine, or at least as fine as they can be.  And who knows, all of our children may end up with all of their organs. Maybe we wouldn’t miscarry.  Maybe they’ll all be (sh-shudder) healthy.

We talked about my wife’s job and her diet and her at-the-moment woefully inadequate calorie intake.  We found out later that, apparently, our case had been the talk of the office that morning.  A 34-year-old vegan with Lupus who’s carrying spontaneous triplets?  It’s odd.  Throughout the appointment, different doctors and other staffers kept poking their heads in and smiling at us: “Hiiii!  Sorry to interrupt, but I’m ___.  We heard everything’s looking good.  Congratulations!”  Then they’d disappear.  My wife is, it seems, medical journal case study fodder.

And it occurred to me that, as upset as we were when we found out we were having triplets, I now really want them all to be healthy and strong.  In fact, I think I want it very badly.  Maybe I’d even move heaven and earth if I have to to make sure they’re all right.

Good god.  When did I turn into a father all of a sudden?

The Purge

I have to think every red-blooded, first-time expectant father wonders the same thing when it’s discovered that babies are on the way: how much material in this house am I now going to have to hide or chuck altogether?

The wife and I need to sell the house.  It’s a given.  Currently, we have 1,000 square feet and 2 bedrooms (1 of which is my office).  That, as the kids probably no longer say these days, is hella too small. So, clock ticking, we’re boxing everything up.  We’ve rented storage space and we’re car-loading our non-essentials over there in the event that God’s Little Gifts come earlier than expected.

Sure, genius. Go ahead and expose your innocent little crew to the brilliant cinematography contained within. No no, I'm sure they'll really appreciate it.

And then the inevitable happens: I’m sifting through our DVD collection and I run across some friggin’ hyper-violent David Fincher masterpiece and think, uh.  Hang on. Or, in the office, clearing books off the shelves and I spy a dusty copy of The Kama Sutra.  Er.  Wait.

Hey, I love David Fincher and I fully anticipate any offspring of mine to share my impeccable film sensibilities, but come on.  This material is not for children.  So what am I supposed to do?

I suppose it’s reasonable to assume that I have a few years before I need to actively shield these children from our house’s flirties and dirties, but I still feel the need to develop some sort of game plan.  Every guy who’s ever clicked a mouse (not to mention, statistically, most ladies) has done a digital porn-sweep of their browser history and this feels more or less like the big leagues version of that.

Alan Moore's Lost Girls.
Sophisticated, illustrative erotica published by Top Shelf Productions (which is apt, as that's the very shelf on which it'll need to reside once our little crew starts walking).

But it raises the bigger issue of what is and isn’t good to have in the home, now that I’m a soon-to-be father.  Does everything in our lives need to be rated G now?  On the one hand, I can’t think of anything more boring and frustrating.  On the other, I’d rather not have to spend the first 10 years of their lives chasing their sticky little fingers around with a fly-swatter (“No no, baby!  That’s only for big people!  That’s adults-only! You’re not ready!  Put it down!  Don’t open that!  That’s mommies-and-daddies-only!”)

Realistically, sure, there’s some sort of happy medium.  Well, there has to be.  Granted, I was raised in a home with no traces of alcohol.  Or movies rated anything harder than PG.  And, come to think of it, when I was a teenager, we didn’t even have a TV.

And god knows I don’t want to over-shelter them either.

!!! This is hard, this parenting business.  And they’re letting just anyone with reproductive organs do this?  WTF

(If you happen to be my children, reading this years from now, what Daddy means is “What The Fantastic”.)