Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

Tonight, I went and visited my friend's Tom and Carla who just had a newborn baby, Ryan Alexander. Normally, children don't move me, but for some reason, when I saw him I had a hard time not crying. Maybe it's the week I've had which is simply too much to even blog about. I heard a 19 year old boy race his motorcycle past me on the highway outside on Tuesday night at 1:30 a.m. and then sadly die. He was going around 120 mph and tragically hit a pillar of the viaduct. I was sad for his family and said a prayer for them. His life just abruptly ended while 24 hours later, Ryan's life abruptly began.

When I was younger, all I wanted was a family and children and then around age 27 I did an "about face" and decided that I never wanted them. However, after seeing Tom hold Ryan tonight, a small part of me marvelled at the wonder of life and the beauty of children. "Miracle" is about the only word that comes to mind which can describe a tiny being who is just 24 hours old but somehow has fingernails, a voice, hair and bright eyes.

Tom has been a big influence in my life in so many ways. Of all people, he has probably helped me learn the most and grow the most. He's an incredible man with a huge heart and an extreme intelligence. Normally you find people with one or the other but rarely both. My guess is that people who have big hearts are too busy loving to "think" and people with intelligence are too busy thinking to "love."
Tom manages both exceptionally.

I've learned that friends are an important thing to surround yourself with. Try as you might, no man is an island. We rely on everyone around us, as well as people we never see. Ryan, as he starts out his life is dependent on his parents, the nurses and doctors who delivered him and soon, he will be making friends in school and beyond as his little life races into adulthood. My sister has two children and I've not spent much time with them. They've always made me claustrophobic. I think it's because I hold onto youth like a Peter Pan gone kleptomaniac so hard that anything representing "adulthood" or "aging" makes me run and hide behind my radio control toys and legos. Maybe, possibly...someday I might dabble into adulthood and share my toys with the next generation as I'm sure that the future nursing home of my choice will have some silly rule against a radio controlled Humvee doing donuts down the hallways between walkers, canes and wheeling trays of strained peas.

As I left the hospital after seeing Ryan, I stand at the elevator. I look at the wall and notice that there is a sign.

"Children's Ward" (arrow to the right) and then "Addiction Recovery Services" (arrow to the left.)

I smile and wonder if people like me, addicted to the act of not growing up, eventually move from one part of the hall to the next as they cross the chasm with faith, become adults and take on the noble, selfless deed of bringing someone new to the planet who can enjoy life in the way we all do.

I once had a college professor who challenged the class to make the world a better place in some small way, each and every day. Not an easy task. Doable, but not easy. In fact, you've pretty much got to be looking all the time in order to get something in each day.

Lately, I've had a good run. Last Friday, a wayward backpack found its way into the lobby of my building. It happened to have a prescription in it and I called the hospital and gave the name on the prescription. The hospital called the person and gave her my number, she called me back and we met up. Turns out, her car had been broken into and the backpack which was a gift from her brother had been stolen. She was thrilled enough to give me a gift certificate to Torrefazione, my favorite coffee shop.

Saturday, a friend of a friend needed a ride back from a weekend concert at The Gorge. He had attended the Friday night concert, had hung out and played in the river all day on Saturday, sat at the campsite on Saturday night while I attended the concert and then I was able to offer him a ride home to Seattle. Lo and behold, the friend now invited me to an upcoming concert, his treat.

Sunday, I chatted with a person I met over the internet to help advise him a dash with a new business he is starting. So, sure enough, right on schedule, an unexpected $2500 lands in my lap from another favor I had done for someone.

Today, as I walked AxL the dog at Greenlake for a few minutes, I saw a man who had run out of gas, was somewhat lost and had no options. I took his gas can, drove 15 minutes to the nearest station, filled it up and handed it back to him. He offered to pay me but I ran away fast. I'm too excited to see what might show up on my doorstep tomorrow. I kind of have my fingers crossed for something cool, like tickets for a Space Shuttle ride. On the other hand, something so simple as finding a penny on the sidewalk will do.

And so, not to be the only guy out here, running around and looking for good deeds, please do me a favor and lend a hand. If you happen to read this, see how many days you can mark on your calendar that you do a good deed, and keep track of those little rewards that pop up out of nowhere on the same calendar. If nothing else, think of each good deed as one raindrop creating some good ripples in the pond of life. If enough of us keep putting drops into the pond, before you know it, there will be an entire ocean of good deeds covering most of the earth's surface. And if you think of it, drop me an email sometime and let me know how it's going: scottkurttila@hotmail.com. Oh...and don't forget to challenge your friends to do the same. Doing this sort of thing isn't misery, but it does love company.

Today marked my 5th year anniversary as an "Amazonian" or rather, as an employee of Amazon.com. In our little, tiny, miniscule corporate world, this is the equivalent of graduating from college...to a degree...no pun intended. I always thought this would be the day I retired and went sailing off into the sunset, however, the current stock price does not afford me that luxury. However, I do feel that I've had one heck of a ride, received an amazing amount of once in a lifetime experience and have made some amazing friends. I wouldn't trade the experience for all the money in the world. I've learned that money does not equal happiness. I'd heard that didn't, but now I know that it doesn't.

How? Because I went from having nothing, to being somewhat rich on paper, to having nothing again and through it all, my happiness remained the same. It's that simple. So what is happiness? It's living your life in your own way. Period. So if you have the ability to live and act in such a way as you see fit, then do it. That's where happiness is.

In the end, life is really just one big game. We have a certain amount of time to play. Sometimes we can plan for things, strategize about our moves on the great gameboard of life and then get ready when it's our turn to roll the die. When the die roll, though, we need to just take what life drops into our lap at that point and do our best with it. That's the great thing about life. It's planning, dreams and goals mixed with just the right amount of chance thrown in to make it interesting instead of predictable. And now, after a day that turned out to be just another day, I will not pass "go" and I will not collect $200. I will siimply lie down with a smile on my face knowing I reached a personal milestone. And when I awake tomorrow, I've got a whole set of other milestones ahead of me, just waiting for me to eventually weave my way over the board until I reach them. The nice thing is, when it comes down to basic emotions, happiness seems to have a Monopoly over me.

Thirty-one years ago yesterday, I was thrilled through and through as friends and family were all showing up at our house. Being a six-year old, I delighted in my parents friends coming over. It always meant hearing good stories, learning new games, playing show and tell with my toys and best of all, staying up late. Usually, one couple showed up, sometimes two. Sometimes a single friend would come over but on this day, everyone was arriving throughout the day. It was like Christmas as they all were bringing gifts - hot wheels, tonka trucks and legos for me, dolls, horses, stuffed animals for my little sister, Kelly.

Our parents had gone on a hunting trip to Alaska the week before and it was the first time in our lives that they had both been gone for anything except their work shifts. We had a live-in baby sitter named Betty, aka "Betty Boop." We had had fun while mom and dad were gone, but I was excited that they were coming back.

In retrospect, I believe I was a touch "psychic" as a child. A week earlier, we had driven over to our friends "The Steve's" house. My sister and I were playing with their kids, Lynn, Vicki and Robbie. I had an odd, uneasy feeling while I played on a wooden structure in their backyard that had a climbing rope, metal monkey bars, swings and a slide. For the past month or so, I'd been having nightmares which would wake me with a feeling of anxiety and, while playing, that same feeling was eerily crawling from inside my stomach out to every limb and running up and down my spine and skin. The adults were inside talking and having coffee but something just wasn't right.

My nightmares had all been the same. I was walking along a highway with my dad. The highway was on a cliff looking out over the ocean. Crashing waves pounded the beach far below. It was a sunny beautiful day and the water was a deep blue, lined with a frothy white. My dad was on the outside edge as we walked. The highway had a thin, flat, rusty steel plate ran along the lip of the perfect black asphalt in place of the painted white line that normally marks the edge of a highway. It looked like the top of a long railroad rail had been neatly shaved off and bolted into the highway.

As I walked, I looked up at my dad to see him looking out at the ocean. I, too looked out as I walked. I saw two huge white tubes rise out of the water, the kind you see on cruise ships in old movies where a character hides inside from people walking by. As we walked, we watched the tubes rise from the water. They turned toward us so that their gaping black holes faced us. At this point, I became filled with dread because I could sense "beings" down inside the tubes even though I could see nothing. Then I noticed that my dad was not paying attention to how close he was walking to the edge as he gazed out. With each step, I saw his right foot come closer and closer to the lip of the flat, quarter-inch metal rail. I watched his foot narrowly miss for about three or four steps and then I looked up to see him squinting against the bright sun as he strained to peer at the tubes rising from the sea. I looked back down at his feet and I yelled, "Dad! Look out!" just as his work boot would caught the edge of the rail as he tripped. I screamed as he simply disappeared from the highway. I stood on the highway looking out at the tubes, scared of the beings inside and crying that my dad had fallen over and vanished.

Then, magically, Dad appeared on the beach far, far below standing in the sand wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Ironically, I'm wearing work boots, blue jeans and a white t-shirt as I type this.

Dad turned and looked at me as I screamed "no!" and cried uncontrollably. He waved to me with a smile just walked into the ocean slowly toward the waiting tubes about 30 yards away. As he walked, he disappeared lower and lower into the water with each step until his head went under. Then the tubes looked at me for a second with their deep, dark black faceless holes before they sank under water themselves. I knew that as they went under, Dad would go into one of them and not come back while I just stood, crying ineffectively against them taking him. Then I would wake up filled with terror which quickly went away when I would walk into my parents room in the dark to see his six foot seven frame filling the bed with mom next to him as they slept.

As that same sense of dread and terror swept over me now while I played on the wooden fort contraption, I heard a car door shut in the driveway on the front of the house. I yelled, "Dad! Mom! NO!!!!!" I jumped down and raced for the five foot high gate at the side of the house that sealed me into the back yard. I was too short to reach the latch at the top but I was panic-stricken and somehow just climbed the small frame of the gate to the top before flinging myself over. I crashed to the ground on the other side as I kept screaming while my heart was pounding. Betty, our baby-sitter was still trying to undo the latch on the gate which was now behind me as I ran with everything I had toward the light yellow car backing out of the driveway. As I reached the driveway, it began to pull away down the street. I raced after it, barely able to breathe, run and scream all once. I could see my dad's head in the backseat on the left side and my mom was sitting next to him in the middle. She turned around and looked out at me chasing them. She waved and smiled as the car sped up and pulled away from me. Betty caught up to me where I had fallen down in anguish, repeating "No! NO! NO!!! DON'T GO!!!" over and over and over. I kicked and screamed against her while she tried to calm me down by saying they would be back. Somehow, I knew they wouldn't be and that I had to stop them, but like my dream, I was powerless.

All of that was behind me now as I opened presents, talked to all of my parents friends and ran around bubbling with excitement. I kept asking Betty when mom and dad were coming back from the airport while exclaiming how surprised they would be when they showed up and everyone was there. Even our friends Curly and Dena had driven 300 miles from Eastern Washington to surprise them.

Then, while I was playing with my new Matchbox car set, I noticed that everyone had sat down in our living room. My dad's police partner asked me to come over to where he sat on the ridiculously orange couch that was actually a fashionable color at the time. I asked him when mom and dad were coming home.

"Scott, your mom and dad won't be coming home." I was stuck in disbelief.

"Why?" I asked with the innocence of a six year old.

"Because the airplane they were in crashed and now they're in heaven."

"Are they ever coming back?"

"No, I'm sorry."

I held out for a few seconds and then began to cry. I ran to my bedroom and flopped on the bed crying. My Grandma Dorothy who would eventually take care of my sister and I for the next 20 years came in and sat down on the bed. She caressed my back as I cried into my bedspread covering pillow. My sister came in, too young to really grasp what was going on, but old enough to grasp that it was a good thing to caress my back. I think I only cried for a minute with Gram and Kelly touching me saying it would be okay.

Teary-eyed, I asked Gram, "Are mom and dad in heaven with God?"

"Yes, they are." She answered bravely, having just lost her only daughter without showing it.

"Will I get to see them when I go to heaven someday?"

"Yes, you will." I immediately cheered up, wiped my face and went back to the living room full of grown ups. I sat back down on the carpet next to the orange couch and asked what happened. My dad's partner explained that the plane had taken off, got lost in the fog and then crashed into a mountain side. There were no survivors. Then he told me that my grandma was going to come and live with my sister and I to take care of us from now on. It's silly, but I think I actually jumped with joy because the first thing that popped into my head was cookies and ice cream every day for the rest of my life. I loved my Grandma immensely for some reason even with the few limited visits I had with her to this point.

"You'll be the man of the house now and you need to take care of your baby sister, okay?" My dad's partner instructed.

"Okay!"

That was 31 years and about 15 hours ago as the clock ticks. Yet it's like last week, too. It's funny that when most people learn of me losing my parents, even that long ago, the reaction is always the same. "I'm so sorry," comes the response. But I'd like to say that in so many ways, it's been one of the single defining events in my life that has made it so wonderful. My parents up to that point had been perfect heroes to me. I had been mistakenly spanked once but then received an apology (another story, I assure you). I never witnessed an argument. I was never the child of a divorce. I never once fought with my parents. I will never have the pain of watching them grow old and pass away a slow, painful death. Not a day goes by that I do not feel them, think about them or love them with my heart.

I still recall running into a man, 20 years ago. He knew my father and I'll never forget what he said to me.

"Your dad was the greatest man I ever knew."

I can now tell you something that has always inspired me. As you live your life each day, do you ever stop to think about your actions, the things you say, the people you touch on a daily basis? Have you ever stopped and thought, "If I were to pass away unexpectedly today, would someone who knows me, tell someone else ten years from now, that I was the greatest person they ever knew?"

I ponder that thought a lot. I don't know that I'm to that point yet, where someone would ever say this about me. Maybe that's why I'm still here, huh? Maybe that's what it's all about. When we get to that point in life, God says "okay, you done good! c'mon up!" and off we go. Sure, only the good die young. The rest of us have to bide our time and keep trying to do better. My hope is that if you're like me, you've got some good examples to follow.

Mom, Dad...thank you for being heroes I can aspire to...and don't give up on me yet...(ha, ha, ha)...I'll try and do a bit better tomorrow, okay? Yea, yea...and the next day and the next day and so on and so on. In the meantime, be sure and get a ton of cookies and ice cream ready! I'm going to need it. Filling your shoes is no easy task.