My Prayers

Prior to Rebecca’s death she and I were pretty ambitious people. We had a number of goals that we wanted to achieve. Rebecca had begun the school psychology program at Fresno Pacific. I had been working toward being accepted into the Wharton School of Business, the top Executive MBA program in the country. It’s a pretty big deal to get into this program. Their average graduate gets a job offer between $175-325k per year upon graduation. It’s not that I am a super genius that would get me into this program but rather a combination of my college GPA, work history, test scores and there were a few other criteria that I happened to meet. In retrospect these goals were likely for our (or my) own self gratification and aggrandizement. To say that Rebecca’s death caused a total paradigm shift for me would truly be an understatement.

I used to despise working for UPS. I think I just felt like because I was a commercial pilot and flight instructor. I have or was working toward a Bachelor’s degree. I felt like I had much more to offer life than spending my days wrestling around with some dusty old boxes, breaking my back in a beat up old truck—this is not how I envisioned my life. However as time has progressed since the death of my sweetheart I have learned a great deal about myself, who I am and what I want in this life.

As I think most men do, I believe I was trying to find my own identity through my career. I found myself wanting and craving to achieve certain goals in life as if this would somehow say that I, Jared Leonard, was here and I mattered. I believe that it was Maslow, in his theory of hierarchy, that called this status people are looking for self-actualization; or in layman’s terms, the need to build a legacy. Some people seek to find their identity or “center” through their work or their spouse’s work. Some find it through their church by jockeying for positions, status and recognition. Others may try to find their identity through the money they have, the house they have, the cars they drive, people they associate with, etc.

This time that I’ve had since Rebecca passed away has truly been a time for introspection and self inventory. I’ve tried to examine the deepest, the most core points of my beliefs. I’ve had to ask myself if the ladders of success that I had been trying to build were even leaned against the right wall. Are these ladders of ‘success’ going to take me and my children to the place that I most inwardly desire to be? Where do I want myself and my children to be?

I think most everyone would say that they want happiness for themselves and their children. Yet they do things that contradict that very prospect. I think this was what I did while I was married. I felt like I needed to achieve all of these….things, in order for Rebecca to love me or to feel like my children would love me. I wanted to create this legacy for my posterity to be able to look back upon and say, “Hey my dad (or grand dad) was.. [insert something important here].” This was me. This is what I thought I needed. Rebecca was an ambitious person too. She wanted me to be successful and for me to achieve the things I desired. However the difference in our perspectives was that she didn’t define me or equate her love for me by what I did for a living, by the things I accomplished or any status I may have achieved. Her love for me was absolute. She told me repeatedly that she didn’t care what I did for a living. The problem was that I did. I felt like I had to be somebody in order to mater or to qualify for her love when the reality was that I had already achieved it.

Herein lies one of my deepest regrets regarding my relationship with Rebecca. I wish that I had of slowed down and not stressed so much about finances or achieving….whatever. I wish that I had of listened to Rebecca and accepted the fact that I don’t have to be defined by what I do or how I appear. To me it is nothing short of the utmost tragedy that I didn’t learn this lesson until after she was gone. I hope to be able to apologize to her someday and express my deep regret for not listening to her wise counsel. For now I just try to live and raise my children in a way that would be pleasing to her and in a way that an all knowing, all loving Heavenly Father would be pleased with as well.

One last thought that I want to share before I close this entry. When talking to my fellow widowed friends, just when I think that I have heard the most sad, most tragic story, someone else seems to share something that makes me think, “Gosh I’m glad I don’t have things as bad as that person.” There is another grave marker just a few steps away from Rebecca’s grave. I had seen the man come and bring his lawn chair on holidays and anniversaries. After seeing him several times I decided to go talk to him. I asked him who he was visiting. He told me it was his wife and only child, a daughter. He went on to explain how just a few days after his daughter’s 16th birthday she had gotten her license. His wife and daughter had gone for a drive down the freeway. While driving the daughter lost control of the car killing both his wife and only child. He told me “I lost everything (that mattered) that day.”

Each day when I pray, I truly pray that my children come home safe to me. I did this before but I think that was what the scriptures called ‘vain repetition.” Each day I try to savor the time that God grants me with these precious children that I have in my care. Each day I try to remind them how much I love them and how important they are to me. Unfortunately for us we have learned that in a few short moments a life can be blotted out and so we must savor the time that we have today.

Naturally Handicapped

Today is my girls’ birthday. Happy Birthday ladies!! I got up extra early to make them pancakes and prepare their favorite breakfast. They were so happy and their faces were just glowing when they got up to see their favorite breakfast foods in front of them—warm and ready to be eaten. I’m always glad to be able to do these things for my kids. I can feel during these brief moments that I’m doing alright as a single parent. I took cupcakes to both their classes and they were just elated to see me there and have their classmates singing Happy Birthday to them.

As some of you know I’ve worked especially hard at learning to acquire new skills that I did not have prior to Becca’s death—things that I leaned on Becca for, e.g. doing my girls’ hair, doing deep household cleaning, brushing up on my rusty cooking skills, etc. I think I’ve done alright at keeping things together. However one of the things that I have learned during this whole widowed experience is that I am just naturally handicapped with this male brain of mine.

One of the recent experiences that come to mind is my son’s birthday which was last month. Three days before his big 10th birthday party I was having knee surgery. Prior to my knee surgery I wanted to have everything ready. I had vacuumed the whole house. I shampooed the carpets. I polished the kitchen floor and had gotten all my inside cleaning done before I went under the knife. I had the cake ordered. The food was ordered. I had the tables and bounce house/slide confirmed with the party rental place. Invitations were sent out. Other than some minor cleaning outside I was ready…or so I thought.

I had some family come about an hour before the party was scheduled to start to help with last minute preparations. As they were cleaning up outside my daughters were beginning to stir with excitement in anticipation of the kids soon to arrive. That was when my daughter asked the big question, “Where are the decorations? We need a sign that says, ‘Happy Birthday Elijah’, we need balloons, we need pictures on the walls.” Oh man, I hadn’t even thought of decorations. Who thinks of this stuff? …girls do. It’s funny to see some of the age old Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus dichotomies unfold within my home with girls that are so young. I mean I certainly didn’t train them to think of this stuff; half the time it seems like they are so aloof that they don’t even pay attention to what’s going on. However at times like at Elijah’s birthday I am suddenly reminded that despite the fact that they are nurtured one way, their feminine nature seems to come out anyway. I love it!!! Personally I like girly girls. I like the fact that they play in the mud and aren’t afraid to get dirty. Yet at the same time when they are getting ready to see their friend Joey they want to put on their body glitter and lip gloss. It’s just cute.

Another example that I think accentuates the fact that I am naturally disabled due to this male brain of mine would be when I am doing their hair. My girls like for me to do their hair nice. They like it when I do the fancy braids, rollers, curlers, the hair care products, all that stuff. When I actually take the time to do a fancy hairstyle they always want to go and ruin it by shoving in bows and clips and ribbons in their hair. Personally I’m just glad that I conquered the task of getting their hair looking good. Yet to them, a girl just isn’t fully dressed without….accessories. For some reason my brain just stops at getting the hairstyle done. They like the hairstyle but then they have this insatiable need to go put a bow or ribbon or a clip in their hair. It makes me crazy but it makes them happy so I just deal with it.

In further examination of the aforementioned examples I can’t help but think that there most certainly has to be other things that my kids are missing out on by not having a mother in the home. I have done my very best to try and compensate for those things that I can think of. However just like the bows in their hair and the decorations for the parties, there are just some things that I wouldn’t even think to do because my brain doesn’t work that way.

For the most part in this entry I have referenced my girls but I acknowledge also that my son is missing out on that feminine influence as well. In addition to losing his mother he has lost his maternal grandmother (she died a few months after Rebecca). He will likely soon lose one of his maternal great grandmothers soon. His cousin Liz has not been feeling well lately and so there has been this slow ebbing away of female influence over his life since his mother died. I do my best to teach him that we treat our women differently—we treat them special. We have to be gentler with them and talk more kindly because their feelings get hurt quicker.

I have tried to teach my son how to dance with his sisters. My thought was that it would teach him how to hold a lady, be firm yet gentle. I felt that it would teach him to read her body language and also just learn patience. Rebecca and I used to love to dance together (Oh how I miss that!!! I miss holding her and reading her body language. I miss holding her body and knowing exactly how she wanted to be touched. Whew, I’ll stop now). Anyhow, dancing is something we’ve always enjoyed doing as a family.

The bottom line is I just worry about these kids. I worry about the things they miss out on by having a naturally inept father. When I was a flight instructor we used to say that they worst mistakes a pilot can make are the ones they don’t know they made. The thought behind that is that if you know you made a mistake you can correct it and take appropriate actions in you subsequent flights. If you make a mistake and don’t know about it that mistake can lead to larger ones thus compromising the integrity of each flight. Most aviation accidents are not caused by one single mistake but rather a series of poor decisions. Herein lies my worry as a single parent, just that there are things that I am not doing, not for lack of desire, but rather my brain just doesn’t work a certain way.