Why This Photo Shows That I’m the Luckiest Man on Earth

Saturday and Sunday, December 24 and 25, 2011

Here is the photo appearing on our holiday card this year:

So, my intention here is to write about what I’m thankful for, but if that comes across as bragging, that’s because “being thankful” and “bragging” are essentially the same thing, so…just stop reading here if you’re that sensitive.

The first thing you’ll notice about the picture is the two children. If you’ve read this blog, or my wife’s, then you know it was a lot of work to bring Owen into this world and even more work to get through his first year. For a time, we weren’t sure if Owen would ever even have a sibling, but finally, after over five years, he did.

In a world with fertility issues, miscarriages, and birth complications, and coming from a religion that championed remaining childless, Jennifer and I are privileged to have two beautiful, healthy, fun, intelligent children: a boy and a girl. And they, in turn, are privileged to have a relationship with my sister and their other uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents, and even their great-grandmother.

That’s not to say that they’re perfect, of course, and we are lucky that in this society, where so many define themselves by their career, and where even those who don’t often need income from both parents to pay the bills, Jennifer has been a stay-at-home mother. Being there from day one all the way through day 2,416 has meant that she was able to nurse, not some pump in a corporate lactation room, but the children themselves. She was able to provide healthy meals, and to know them so well that she knew when it was time for Owen to receive assistance with his apraxia and to keep Isla healthy and out of germ-ridden daycares so as not to get infections due to her bladder issues. She was able to follow them, advocate for them, and to be there to notice when things were not ideal, instead of receiving a report at the end of the day from an underpaid daycare provider who was busy caring for 10 other children.

Having the children at home also meant that, come the evenings and weekends, we were not like so many other parents I’ve seen, either overcompensating for having been at work all day to pay for daycare or not knowing what to do with our kids now that we do have them – “Hey, let’s go out to eat, but I guess we better get a sitter!”

After receiving in-home care from a wonderful speech therapist, my wife advocated to get Owen enrolled in an excellent preschool that helped with his needs. Since the school’s tuition was beyond our budget, she used her time as a stay-at-home mom to secure a scholarship so that Owen was able to attend for three semesters. And now, amazingly, he is able to attend one of the best elementary schools in the city. Isla, meanwhile, continues to enjoy the all-day companionship of her mother, and mom, in turn, is good enough to continue to breastfeed. So many babies are, for whatever bizarre reasons, shifted onto formula way too quickly. I’ve even heard many men say how happy they were when their wife discontinued nursing. Me? I’m different. I think boobs are like sportscars: yeah, I like looking at them. But if they actually work: now that’s fucking awesome.

Next, notice the photo’s background. That’s our new home. After years in a small apartment, we are finally able to breath in a classy, cozy, personality-filled house. In a world where millions of people are homeless, and millions more live in squalor, or in extremely cramped and unsanitary conditions, we – of single income and limited schooling – are able to live in a gorgeous three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a yard, heat, air conditioning, and a garage, and a gazebo, and a hot tub, and – as the photo depicts – a freakin’ fireplace. We are the 1%.

And, as I’ve alluded, purchasing the home was made possible by my job. Despite my frequent sarcasm to the contrary, I enjoy my job, I enjoy my co-workers, and I am often amazed that a former Witness like me, with no advanced degree of any kind, works day by day with chemists and engineers, and that I am able to make a difference in the medical industry, improving health care for thousands of my fellow humans. Hell, I even have my own cube.

And my job would not be possible if I had not attended college. Higher education was discouraged in my family and in my culture, yet my wife saw beyond that and, in 2000, she supported me while I began my college career. I hated college for about two weeks, and loved it ever since.

My degree afforded me the opportunity to get out of the retail doldrums and out of the rut of low-paying tasks that so many of my friends and family members still toil in. And now, during a recessed economy with rising tuition and limited employment, my employer pays for me to attend college. After attending the best community college in the Twin Cities, I am now enrolled at the highest-rated university in the state.

Oh yeah – and speaking of that state, I am lucky to have been raised in Minnesota. A clean, beautiful state in a great nation. True, there a many great nations in the world, and their are many beautiful states in the Union. But there are also a lot of places I’d never want to live for a single day. Minnesota, USA, is not one of them. Indeed, I live in the most livable city in the entire country.

And while a billion people go each day hungry and illiterate, and others believe alcohol to be evil, I am lucky enough to – in the comfort of the home you see pictured above – to start each day with a meal, and to end each evening with food (too much food, really), beer that I home-brewed, and any one of the hundreds of books in my collection. And while millions are illiterate, and so many are deaf or blind, I can – without even leaving my home – read the world’s greatest literature, listen to its finest music, and view its most beautiful films.

Then there is the tree in the picture. Healthy, and with the strength and stamina required, my family and I were able to trek out of doors and cut down our own holiday tree. As you see, our tree and the mantle above the fireplace lack any sort of reference to a divinity. Unlike so many that have come before us, we are able to look at the universe for what it is. We know a volcano is not the flaring temper of a demon, and we know the sun is not the fiery chariot of a god. As a result, in our home we do not practice – nor do we submit our children to – circumcision, spankings, groveling prayers, shunning, or lies about Santa, the Easter Bunny, or Jehovah. We live in reality. This is our testimony; this is our spirituality: that having been lucky enough to know the nature of a germ, and an atom, and a star – to know space and time, evolution and geology, gravity and relativity – we will gape in awe at the Universe of which we are citizens, and to be humbled by the very fact that, against the staggering odds of an empty galaxy, a violent planet, and the trillions of possible egg-sperm combinations, that we even exist at all.

But there’s more. So much more. It is, I suppose, fashionable to long for more, but at the risk of being passe’ I am going to admit that I revel in some of the events of my life. Growing up in a simple mobile home park, I never would have guessed that one day I would see the Black Hills, Manhattan, Trier, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Key West, Halifax, and Prince Edward Island. It is at once both humbling and empowering to think that I have been on television, have walked on stage to receive a college degree, received payment for my words, spoken before a crowd, traveled first-class, ridden in a limousine, voted, officiated, raced, stood in a sea of humans and listened to music created and performed by Paul Simon, Mason Jennings, King Crimson, and Brian Wilson. To know that I can share words and images and filmlets with my fellow humans at the touch of a button. To have been influenced and – more importantly – to have shared a kinship with Newton, Bruno, Galileo, Van Gogh, da Vinci, John Adams, Curie, Einstein, Tesla, Jocelyn Bell,  Goeppert-Mayer, and Mohandas Gandhi. And to have been entertained by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Chaplin, Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Jim Henson, Alfred Hitchcock, Gene Roddenberry, and Steve Jobs. And to have even, on rarest occasion, touched greatness…having shaken hands with Paul Wellstone, Oprah Winfrey, and Lawrence Krauss, and having been friends with Rhett.

Finally, though, there’s that photo. Here I am, in St. Paul, having already lived longer than most other life ever, with my friendly cat, my two wonderful children, and my talented, intelligent, beautiful wife who, against common sense, continues to willingly have sex with me (though, truth be told, I’ve done nothing if not gotten better looking this whole century). I’m a lucky, lucky man.

Also, I taught myself how to juggle.

I hope this Solstice-Haunukka-Saturnalia-Yule-Xmas-Kwanzaa finds you likewise with health, wealth, and wisdom to be thankful for.

Thanks for reading.