Happy Birthday

It is still hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that you died 2 months shy of your 35th birthday. Today - May 1, 2012 - should be spent celebrating your 36th but instead we are remembering your time spent here on earth. Cherished memories coupled with lessons left untaught makes this day the best day to share what you want your boys to know about  love, friendship, respect, work ethic, and being good men. As I recorded our conversations I couldn't help but interject/add my own thoughts - I know you would expect nothing less. :)

Lessons To Live By

For Charlie and Tommy

1. Respect your mother, always. How you treat your mother will be reflected in all relationships to follow. Listen, love, learn and you will grow into respectable young men.
2.  Be kind and don't hold grudges. It takes too much energy to harbor anger; apathy is a better option and is a clear indicator that you are over it - whatever "it" may be. Use good judgement when determining where loyalties lie and know that you do not have to remain when the consequences are negative or hurtful. Know that this is about personal wellbeing and that you are not obligated to continue relationships with people who hurt you.
3. Give 100% of yourself to every task. Whether it is school, sports, work, or even favors granted, there will be times that you "don't feel like it" or you want to quit. Know that this is not an opt-out, but a test of character and that quiting is never an option.

4. Keep yourself healthy and strong. Eat well, work out, and do not fall prey to gluttony.
5. About Girls...Be nice. Soon (much to your mother's dismay) you will want to date the girls you used to "hate" in elementary school. Women have long memories, trust me on that one, so be respectful and kind always.
6. About Women...ditto and then some, so listen carefully:

• Put them before all else without losing yourself - a woman who wants to change who you are is not "the one". Keep it real.
• Respect, compliment, and HEAR when you listen; let her know how much you love her even when she is mad (especially then) because really, some fights are not worth winning. Do not make the mistake of revisiting past arguments, resolve and let go.
• Always let the woman you love know and feel like she is the most beautiful woman in the room. If you don't think that she is then you are with the wrong woman because there is a difference between lust "hot" and love "beautiful" and when you have both you are truly a lucky man.
• Marry for the right reasons not for what (you think) is right at the time.  
• Know that you will, on some level, marry your mother. See lesson 1.
• Also know that your mother will, on some level, find fault with your wife so choose wisely.
• Your mother should always come first... O.K that's me talking but your father would tell you to at least pretend at times, for my sake. ;)
• Relationships are not perfect. Learn how to disagree without being hurtful and never fight in front of your children or anyone else for that matter.

7. Work hard and provide for your family. Never expect others to take care of you because they won't, it is not their responsibility. This lesson starts early and builds character.

8. Think of chores as an opportunity to make money rather than a burden. You will begin to understand the value of a dollar when you spend what YOU earned; random "stuff" will no longer be a necessity, trust me. How would you feel if your mother whined and complained because you wouldn't give her 20.00 for a pair of shoes she just had to have? If she followed you around pleading with you, telling you that you are mean and that they're only 20.00 so what's the big deal? Not so easy to part with your own money, is it?  OK, so that was me again but you get the point... I hope.

9. Good friends tell you the truth not what they think you want to hear. You will make and have multiple friendships throughout your life but a true friend is someone who has shared experiences that cannot be matched, mirrored or repeated. Life-long friends are a part of who you are and help you to become who you want to be even when this means supporting you through mistakes or bad decisions. Your father was loved by many, many people but only a select few were a part of his reality, his heart, his mind. He would tell you to choose wisely and keep them close.  

10. Your most important role in this life is that of "Dad".

• Before I say anything else hear this:  DO NOT think that you can eat everything your wife does when she is pregnant because you can't. You get fat, she has a baby, period. With that said...
• Be involved. From the moment you hear "we're pregnant" you are a Dad; behave accordingly.
• Never take time with your children for granted. No matter how tired or sick you are, play with your kids and all will be good.These are the memories you all will hold close to your heart, they will sustain you through times of adversity and bring you more joy than you ever thought possible.
• Support, guide and lead by example. You are a role model so act like one.
• Be patient. This is not always easy but essential if you are to be respected and expect the same from your kids.
• Make sure that they are involved in activities outside of school. This keeps your kids out of trouble and accountable - you will know where they are and who they are with. You should get to know their friends as well as their friend's parents because apples don't fall far.  Your father once told me that he didn't care if it was the violin or sports (although I did see him wince when he said violin) as long as you both were doing something other than nothing.
• Read to your kids before they go to bed. No matter what, end the day on a good note. Reading to your kids reminds you of what is important in your life, them. Your dad enjoyed reading bed time stories with you and someday you will read the same stories to your own children, allowing your bond to continue long after that last bed time story was read.
• Make sure that they have a good breakfast before they go to school. Don't let them load up on carbs! Peanut butter toast or scrambled eggs (two whites to one yolk) with a small glass of juice will start their day off well. Your father felt very strongly about this and loved making you breakfast before you went to school.
• Don't let them eat a lot of junk. Indulge them once in a while but make it a special occasion not an expectation or reward. Take the advice of a dear friend and tell your kids that the guy driving around the neighborhood in the white truck decorated with pictures of ice cream is a very bad man and that they must run inside when they hear his truck bell ringing.
• Don't let your child win even when they threaten to call the police on you...Charlie ;) Not sure I agree with this advice but the story behind it is classic.
• Make birthdays special. This does not mean an extravagant party every year but a day to celebrate the birth and life of your child. Cake, ice cream and balloons around the house are a must!
• Keep your car clean. Seriously!
• Final thoughts. Charlie and Tommy: Do well in school, excel in every area of your life, become the person that you want to be and choose fulfilling careers. All of this will make you, and everyone who loves you contented. Riches are not found in your bank account but in the memories made with family and friends so make them joyous. I will be with you always, watching and keeping you safe. I love you, boys. Dad

A Birthday wish:

Sharing this with others will ensure that Chuck's legacy live on through more than just our boys. Happy Birthday xoxo

 In Loving Memory

Charles J. Pataky
5.1.1976 - 3.8.2011Daddy and Me

Remembering Chuck

March 8, 2012 marked one year without Chuck. To honor his memory we gathered with friends and family, shared some of his favorite food (Dee-Dee's buffalo chicken dip, calamari, chicken parm with salad and crusty bread), listened to the music he loved, and remembered.
Remembered his wit, his need to make sure that everyone was having a good time, had enough to eat and drink - drinks that never seemed to to diminish because he would always, always refill when you where not looking leading to many seemingly unexplainable hangovers. Real funny, Chuck.

Remembered his charisma, how he genuinely engaged people in conversation meant solely for them. Chuck didn't "do" small-talk but would quietly observe, making engaging him in small-talk all the more appealing.

Remembered his camaraderie. Chuck was surrounded by people he wanted to know more, as well as with those he could talk to without speaking. The latter were a select and cherished few. His death changed them all leaving a seemingly endless empty space, loneliness in a crowd of one, an eternity of unfinished sentences, and anger.

Remembered his laugh or lack thereof. Chuck was not a "laugh out loud" kind of guy, as a matter of fact it was a rare treat to catch him smiling. His sideways smile was reserved for T a knowing smile for Charlie and for or me, well, I usually got the silent laugh - one that shook his body but made no sound while his tightly closed eyes and broad smile made it clear that he found himself hilarious at my expense. However, I did always end up laughing with him because despite his pensive demeanor, he was very funny. The few pictures I have of Chuck smiling I will cherish.

Remembered his physical strength. Man he was strong.

Remembered his character. Chuck did not judge nor did he hold grudges. He taught the boys to be respectful and accepting of others and to have the courage to be steadfast when adversity tested their resolve.

Remembered his love of football and how this aided in his comeback from his initial battle with T-PLL.

Remembered his obsession with the gym and quest for abs. "This summer I will have my abs." Lol! I heard that for 12 years and can pretty much guarantee that he has them now! :)

Remembered his love of the sun, the beach, and being shirtless whenever possible.

Remembered his dancing skills...or not. Charlie refers to this as "doing the Chuck" and has his father's move down to the facial expression. Very funny to watch the two of them dual on the [kitchen] dance floor.

Remembered G&R, Poison, Journey, and the others on his playlist that echo who he was and bring him to life whenever I hear a favorite song.

Remembered his book club and the resulting blessings.

Remembered how he loved to play cards. 2009 was the Summer of poker. Chuck would play weekly despite my protesting and questioning the necessity of gambling bla, bla...I have learned so much about time wasted on senseless arguing that the "bla" speaks for itself.  2010 was the Summer of nose bleeds, fatigue, irritability, bruising, and what we thought was an injury induced large spleen. Nope. 2010 was the Summer of cancer, not just any cancer but T-PLL, "a rare and highly aggressive form of leukemia."  Talk about being dealt a shitty hand. By late Fall Chuck had spent many sleepless nights leading up to or proceeding treatments playing poker online with his best friend. These hours could have easily been filled with dread, fear, and a sense of loneliness only known by those fighting to live were instead spent creating strategies, bluffing, folding, losing and winning. Poker nights had taken on a new meaning - those late night games filled the void of uncertainty caused when cancer recreates relationships and redefines who you are in the eyes of others - in those hours he was transported back to the summer of 2009, when poker was a night out with friends and he was just one of the guys. I'm not sure if either knew how essential those 2:00 AM games were in terms of recovery but I do believe that both men needed to play - needed this time to just be who they were: best friends playing late night poker. Nothing more, nothing less.

So many more memories but none as important as remembering his love for his boys and how hard he fought to live for them. I can still see Chuck pushing his body to it's limit over and over again, willing the cancer to cease it's senseless attack. When they are older I will tell the boys what Chuck remembered in the end, how his memories of playing catch with them in the back yard became reality when meningitis robbed him of the here and now. Chuck remembered their laughter, felt the sun on his skin and the grass underfoot. Chuck was there with his boys and he was happy.

He remembered and so will they.

Embrace, Learn and Carry On

On March 3, 2010 my boys saw their father for the last time. I tried to prepare them but kids cannot grasp what it means to be intubated  by handling the tubes prior to visiting. The boys just wanted to see their dad, to hug him, talk to him, to tell him to hurry up and come home. I'm not sure why I chose that night or why I even thought it would be a good idea because when the moment arrived I wanted to swoop them up and run. What had I done? Their last memory should not have been fear, tubes and machines. Poor Tommy, he was so excited. I can still see him bounding into the room, his happiness melting into horror as he stared at what used to be his indestructible father. He wanted so desperately to talk to him, to climb up into the hospital bed and "watch TV like I did the last time" but the lifeless body sustained by a breathing tube was too much for his young mind to process and he ran from the room crying "I'm afraid!, I'm afraid!" I had been numb for weeks but when I watched my little boy finally understand just how sick his father was something in me snapped. As I spiraled downward, our then 9 year old slowly approached the hospital bed with silent tears streaming down his face. Charlie leaned forward without hesitation, kissed his father on the forehead and said "good bye, dad.  I love you".  Darkness consumed me. I knew Chuck was crying inside that shell holding him hostage; cursing cancer and the pain it was causing his boys.

Charlie. How could someone so young be so astute? His courage that night continues to inspire me. When the routine of the MICU, the doctors, nurses, rounds, beeps, EKGs, EEGs, biopsies, PET scans, CAT scans, white counts or lack thereof become common place, you allow yourself to ignore the obvious. Observing Chuck thru Charlie's heartbroken eyes forced me to see what I refused to acknowledge since being told in November that the cancer had come back as a lymphatic tumor. Chuck was going to die. I knew well before it was ever discussed with his team of doctors that he was not going to make it but I tuned it out - refusing to see what was shown to me. My boys forced me back to reality. I remember thinking that night that I had ruined them, tainted their memory of Chuck and caused irreversible damage. But, as I sat head-in-hands with my back against the cold glass of the walkway windows connecting the MICU to the Children's hospital, I heard Tommy laughing. He was laughing. Forcing my head up, my vision clouded by tears laced with furry, I saw my little man's smiling face in mine asking if he could "sleep ova Gam's house" (those who know T know that "ova" is not a typo :).  When I told him that he could, he hugged me said thank you and bounded away. Watching him was surreal; like a parallel universe. Tommy was wreaking havoc as always while Charlie was pensive and withdrawn, eyeing his brother with a new sense of responsibility. I know now that Charlie was born into this role and in that moment I screamed at a God I hardly knew. Why them? What did they do to deserve such pain and suffering? Why? Why? Why?!!!!! In time I would come to understand but right then I hated the God my husband embraced. What did his prayers get him? Nothing. The anger has diminished and is no longer directed at God but at what I view as a senseless loss. Faith eased my husbands fear and offered the unconditional love he had sorely lacked for most of his 34 years here on earth. For that I will be forever grateful.

Neither of my children have spoken of that night. Daily conversation and recollection has ensured their memories are centered on those moments they want to keep close, times shared that define their relationship with their father rather than those defined by TPLL. But still, they are so young, will memories dim; voices fade? This is Charlie’s greatest fear - that he will forget his dad.

These are the reasons why memories, good and bad, must be guarded from alteration. Our past is who we are, or were, depending on whether or not we chose to learn from it. Burying, revising, or omitting events that brought us to the place we now occupy does all involved an injustice. It is only by embracing who our loved ones were in life we are able to carry on their legacy with honesty, integrity and lots of laughter. My boys deserve nothing less.

Slide Shows

When my husband passed away last March a flood of such memories threatened to suffocate all that I had come to embrace as reality. The image of our then 5 year old son, sitting on the floor at the memorial watching his father's life flash before his eyes in the form of a slide show has been burned into my memory and my heart breaks every time I allow myself to revisit that place of deep, dark sorrow. "Poor Tommy, he will never understand"... have you ever seen child's heart break? I thought I had until that moment, when everyone else disappeared, and it was just Chuck and Tommy. What will he remember? Who will he know? Will his memories be his own or will they have been rewritten for all of the right (?) reasons. Will he remember asking, many months before, if I "missed daddy" and responding to my "yes" with "Why? Do you miss fighting?" Probably not, but I will. This seemingly "simple" question forced me too see the lasting damage we caused in our quest to be right, or maybe we were just angry that neither of us could remember why we stayed together in the first place. Honestly, I don't know why were so miserable but I do know that we created a slide show of our own, one that had been burned into the memories of our boys. The plan was to make it up to them, to replace the negative experiences with positive. When I was told that Chuck would likely succumb to cancer I promised him, and myself, that I would surround them with  good men, that I would choose wisely and never again subject them to the negativity they once associated with marriage.  We were given the opportunity to reconcile and rectify those events that had threatened to create lasting damage to childhood memories - this was a gift I will be forever grateful for.

Memories

Memories are tricky. There are those you hold onto with ferocity and those that are fleeting like  a familiar scent or shared song. They can be whimsical,  preserving those joyous moments we cling to in times of despair and they can be torturous, rearing their ugly head at the most inconvenient moments. The tricky thing is, is that memories are alterable. It is our ability to erase those that are too unpleasant to keep close, or embellish the ones that you wish had been better that make them such. You may need to dig deep to find memories tucked away for future contemplation or fight memories too painful to recall. Worse yet, we can transform memories into something they are not, something that will allow us to perpetuate a fantasy when perhaps it is time to stop and see who we are.  So yes, memories are tricky but it is what we do with them that is the trickiest part of all.