The Gift of Experience

My grandchildren have been around the world, well, almost. They’ve traveled a good part of the United States, been to Europe several times, savored Central America and had thrilling intercontinental adventures a lot of other kids only read about. They’ve certainly been spoiled in the most wonderful ways.

It is my sincere hope they don’t get a new car for their high school graduation nor other perks some parents feel high schoolers somehow deserve. That was my own deep-seated prejudice growing up and I hope I’ve raised my own kids with that same distain about junior’s entitlement staying buried and never to be unwrapped.

It’s the gift of experience that Sharon and I feel is the best kind of spoilage possible. Fortunately, my own two adult children agree with our assessment. They have taken their own children to the far reaches of this country and are now branching out across the globe. We couldn’t be prouder of their adventures in the real world.

Nana and Papa have been very fortunate to be able to share that sense of adventure and ‘trying new things’ when they come to Palm Springs each year. When we gather, as we have now for more than thirteen plus years in Palm Springs, giving the kids new experiences is our top priority.

From horseback riding to coastal toe-dipping to mountain top explorations, the grandkids have been there, done that, and usually hanker for more. Each year features new experiences they might not find anyplace else. This also includes the more domestic side of life.

When the clan gathers, each family is responsible for at least one evening meal. This includes full preparation, table setting, seat selection, toasting, and clean up. Each grandchild has their own favorite desert which all the kids collectively prepare.

Art classes and cooking classes have become a staple of every family gathering. Nana holds court and her scribes eagerly follow her instructions, knowing they are the prime recipients of the culinary results. No adults allowed to participate. Art classes are more open and adults are strongly encouraged to participate there.

One of the highlights of each family gathering is an original scripted play reading that the kids put on each year. Recently, music has been added to the mix. Papa writes the play, directs the kids in their reading parts and then steps back to let the young thespians perform. There are usually twenty to thirty neighbors in the audience.

While It’s become a LaComb-McMahon tradition now, none of the grandchildren, except perhaps for Maya, are that comfortable performing in front of an audience. For the other four, it is well beyond their comfort zone. They do it anyway, understanding that pushing themselves to perform in front of a bunch of strangers is a wonderful experience for later in life. Besides, they really have no choice.

Our philosophy of the gift of experience has proven itself over and over again. So, how do you teach ambition, a good work ethic or being hungry for more. I would suggest you can’t teach that by giving away some material object but rather by gifting the kids a real-world experience. Exposure to new experiences is a great way to prime the pump of curiosity.

Possible Side Effects

Seventeen hours in the ER (emergency room) gives a person plenty of time to reflect on a life lived. For some, it’s a reckoning they don’t want to face. For others, it’s a confirmation that, thus far, they’ve avoided the cruelties of careless living. For me, it was an opportunity to listen carefully (with no apologies, I might add) and reflect on how others had lived their lives up until their collision with reality.

Quick backstory here; my friend had contracted shingles in her eye. Even with the Shingles shot and the booster, she was one of the unlucky four percent that caught the virus. It was incredibly painful. I was there as her caregiver, confidant, listener, sounding board and doctor translator.

Sequestered behind half curtains, her in the hospital bed, me in a chair beside her, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversations between nurse and patient all around us. This was a regional trauma center at a major hospital, so it was busy twenty-four seven. As the patients came and went out of their neighboring cubicles, their dialogue gave me pause and plenty of time for reflection.

The phrase ‘side effects’ glued itself inside my brain. It came from a sign on the wall, prominently displaying possible side effects of some medicines administered. Here came one patient after another, each asked to review their medical history to the nurse then doctor. For most of the patients, it was an open admission of poor judgment, unhealthy habits, unforeseen circumstances, and a hundred thousand other excuses for not living a healthy life.

The first was fifty-five years old skeleton of a woman. She had had most of her major external body parts replaced, removed, or switched out for titanium. Her voice sounded like she was pushing one hundred and her body wasn’t that far behind. She knew a lot of the nurses there and they shook their heads when they saw her name on the roster again.

A middle-aged man came in, about as strong and robust looking, as any other man seen in the ward. Chest pains brought him in with a history of heart attacks in the family. After a litany of questions, the nurse hit the jackpot. ‘Yes,’ he did drink a lot. Only hard liquor and every day. Might this be the cause of his heart issues. He didn’t know but he sure as hell wasn’t about to stop drinking, he announced. End of that conversation.

Another relic of better times had started smoking at ten years old, continued for the next fifty years but then went cold-turkey and turned to drinking instead. Now her kidneys were shot (or so she was told) was probably diabetic (she didn’t want to get tested), was on her third husband and didn’t know where he was anyway.

Moving my friend and I from the ER to a hospital bed took me away from evesdropping but not observing. Each day, the nurses would take their patients on walks around the front desk. Some were recovering from surgery, others from heart attacks and still others from some debilitating illness that had brought them there in the first place. Each was on the road to recovery, some on the high road, others the low road.

For some, age was the culprit but for others, it was simply life catching up with them. For me and all of them, the dye has pretty much been cast. Healthy living may extend the inevitable for a little longer while unhealthy living is most certain to curtail it one way or another.

Side effects in life are like choices made, decisions confirmed and lifestyle avenues taken or not taken. The curtain is dropping for all of us. For some, it seems to be dropping a lot faster than others.

My friend has pretty much recovered. It was a long and tedious process with plenty of Tylenol to ease her painful journey to recovery. They say that once you’ve had the Shingles, you’re more susceptible to a relapse. Hope it doesn’t happen again. But if it does, I’ll be there to help her along that journey again.

Definitely a side effect of love and affection still rock solid after all these years.

Writers Write, Then What?

 

Writers write. Their biggest Achilles' heel is marketing. I learned this early on at book fairs and feeble attempts at selling my books on Facebook, etc. There’s a reason the real money to be made in self-publishing is in the ancillary services offered writers to help them move their product.

Over the years, I’ve developed a small but consistent following for my weekly blog postings. With that audience in mind, my editor and I have developed a mini web site which we hope will be the first of many for my individual novels.

This first one is for the ‘Debris’ trilogy series. We’ve packaged the three books together in one Kindle package and are offering discounted prices on the print books. I’ve begun posting this mini site in select Facebook groups and that seems to be working out well. So, now I’m expanding that reach and hoping to reach even more viewers.

My simple one-line introduction and the link are below:

Hi, I'm Denis J. LaComb, a local author. Interested parties can check out my 'Debris' trilogy of novels set in the Coachella Valley by visiting this site.

Debris Trilogy by Denis J. LaComb 

https://sites.google.com/view/debris-trilogy-palm-springs