Tag: children

Roller Skating and Maturity

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment
-The beautiful skates my wife rented-

So my wife and I recently took the kids to a roller skating rink. First off, these still exist. Secondly. The one we went to could have been mistaken for a crack den. Or at least what I assume a crack den looks like. I nearly passed it for not realizing it was the place. It was built inside what I assume is a condemned school gymnasium from 1973. You might think I am kidding. I am not. See photo below. My middle daughter brought a friend and I apologized that she would need to get a tetanus shot after coming with us to this place.

-Literally an old grade school gym-
-The entryway was only slightly flooded-
-We weren’t allowed to go up stairs apparently-
-The skate floor (old basketball court) was nice-

Anyway, this got me thinking about how much things change. When I was a kid, going to the roller skating rink was a highlight of school trips. Thinking back on it now though, sure there was the fun going going fast, but the thrill of the place was finding a girl to hold hands with during the “couples skate” time. Also, the lead up to that time, there would be a whisper campaign of friends going to ask other friends if they wanted to be your couple skate partner.

As a child, that thrill of holding hands and the build up of who it was going to be was what made that time special. We were too young for real boyfriends or girlfriends, but playing the part was exciting. I walked out on the rink today and realized the thrill of childhood newness was gone. My wife skated by me and I realized I already had my partner to hold hands with. There was no mystery or thrill in wondering who, but that was okay.

That thrill has been replaced with the maturity of a deep and meaningful relationship. One that has led to my children being born and getting to see them experience things in somewhat the same way I did as a child. There was no couple skate today, but my girls come home from middle school talking about their friends who are “dating”. Alicia and I don’t allow boyfriends until they are 16 years old. Which might sound old fashioned, but we find allowing them to focus on childhood has worked out well so far.

I have often said that my current life is my favorite time of my life. I am 40 years old this year. That being said, I said that at 35 and also at 30. At 25 and at 20. I also said it at 15, and while I might not directly remember, I’m sure I said it at 10 and 5 as well. My point is, while I appreciate my past, I am happy with my life now and am looking forward to the future.

D. Michl Lowe

My Grandfather Was A Coward

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

My mother knew nothing about her real father. Even when her mother was brutally murdered by another man, she knew nothing about her real dad; believing her father to be a different man. When her real father revealed himself in her fifties, she was taken aback. A mutual friend apparently was having breakfast with her “dad” down at the local Hardy’s every Tuesday. When she confronted this man who she was told was her “real dad” she was understandably hurt and angry. She asked him, “When my mother was murdered, why didn’t you come to get me? I had no one!” He hung his head, “I was just a poor boxer.” He said, “I didn’t have nothin to offer.”

So why did he contact her then? After all these years, why did he have his breakfast friend reach out to her? Why now? As far as she could tell, it was so he could have a dance partner down at the local Moose Lodge. He was in his late eighties and a little senile, barely able to really comprehend who his relations were. I (her son) went to meet him for the first time and spoke to him about my wife and my kids. “These are your Great Granddaughters”, I told him, showing him a picture of the girls. He smiled and said they looked nice. He didn’t ask anything about me, my wife, or what his great-grandkids liked, or what type of kids they were. Really, there was no discussion about us at all. He either didn’t care or didn’t understand what was really going on.

His days were spent in meaningless pursuits that at his age seemed silly. After a year of knowing about him, all my mother had been a couple of one-sided visits and several uncomfortable phone calls asking her to come dance with him at the Moose Lodge.

Then, he got sick. Sick to the point that it was clear he was going to die. he didn’t ask for any of us. Mom went first to visit him and came away numb. She said, “You don’t have to go.” I went.

I went by myself. I entered the room and saw him lying on the bed, haggard. I ignored the three other people in the room; a friend, his current wife, and his son from another marriage (he never actually married my grandmother). He was unable to speak. Staring at the ceiling he just watched, as if he was expecting something to happen. I stood by the bed and held his hand for some time.

If I am being honest, I hated this so-called man, right or wrong I did. I hated that he wasn’t up to the task of being the father he was called to be. I hated it that he hadn’t stepped up! That he hadn’t ridden in on a white horse and rescued my mom from a childhood of horrors. I hated that in some part, I could see his failures in parts of myself that I abhor. With his hand still in mine, I struggled with what to say. Do you really talk about dying to a person who is facing it? It seemed almost cruel to talk about the encroaching line of eternity that I assumed he was more than aware of.

The pause I took seemed to last for a long time. In the end, I made a decision.

It was a decision that I didn’t care if he wanted to know me or my family. I didn’t care if he was a horrible person who had abandoned his child for the sake of convenience. I didn’t care about any of that. I wanted him to know us. We were worth knowing. However, he would never have the opportunity to do this during his lifetime. His life was over.

I gently squeezed his hand and began to pray over him out loud. “Dear God, my Grandfather doesn’t know you Lord, but I do. I ask you now to open his eyes dear God to Your truth. Help him Lord to ask for Your forgiveness and to believe that you save him even now. So that he might be with you in paradise God…”

After leading him through the sinner’s prayer, I ended it. He couldn’t speak of course. He couldn’t even write or even really smile. I have no idea if he accepted Christ, ignored me, or was even coherent enough to understand what was going on. I kissed his forehead and walked out of the hospital room. I sat in the car beside my wife and wept. I wept for his wasted life, what he had missed. All the amazing relationships and love he had missed out on. He had missed it all.

He was so focused on himself that he had missed the awesomeness God had placed right in front of him. Dear God, help me never miss the goodness you have given to me. Help me not to embrace the cowardice in my blood. Help me to grab life by the throat and wring out every good thing you so generously provide. Help me not to be afraid of living life for You, of being the father you have called me to be.

D. Michl Lowe

The Importance Of Writing For Your Children

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

I’m going to be headed home today to meet with my wife and two kids, along with my parents to cut into a cake. It’s not a birthday cake or a retirement cake or anything like that, it’s a gender reveal cake.

My wife will give birth (God willing) to our third child in September of this year and she wanted our current kids (8 and 6 years old) to have some fun guessing the gender along with us through this now iconic practice of the pink and blue inner confection hidden inside a cake.

Maybe I’m just a weird dude (I admit it, I am), but I can’t help but think about my own death today, hopefully, years down the road. With the new life rapidly developing within my best friend and lover, I wonder what I am actually leaving my children. I’m not a rich man, so money isn’t going to be a legacy I leave behind. I’m also not a powerful man, I don’t leave them a company or family business to run. I’m not a politician or influential man.

I am a Christian man.

I hope before everything else, I am leaving them a legacy of living out Jesus in front of them. The leftists often accuse the right and Christians of “brainwashing” our kids into following our religious beliefs.

-raises his hand-

I’m guilty your honor. I am doing everything within my power to lead my children into a relationship with the God of all creation. Let’s be honest, if you held the belief that God became a human being and came down to earth to save everyone and actually did it through His death and then resurrection, you would be a fool to NOT lead your children into a relationship with this being.

The reality is, the left doesn’t believe there is a God and therefore doesn’t believe we should teach our children this “myth”. The reality is, they indoctrinate their own children just as strongly into the myth that something came from nothing.

It’s not a matter of faith or no faith, but rather where one’s faith is placed.

I also am a writer. So far I’ve written nearly three books, only one of which is physically published, Modern Chivalry (can be found on Amazon), the other two I’ve published on this site for people to read and enjoy.

Many of the articles that I’ve written I wrote with the knowledge that someday my kids will read them. I have a series of letters I’ve written to my girls, just in case I am someday gone too soon. I’ve written down all my good dad talks about life, love, relationship, God, etc. in case I’m not there to give these talks in person.

I’m so excited to know if I will be having my first little boy, or if I am going to be so outnumbered by girls that I have no hope of surviving 😳.

However, more than anything else, I pray that God will allow me to continue to write so that someday my kids can read my writings and find comfort in having a small part of their dad still alive. Still fresh. Still vivid upon a page.

A long time ago my dad received a cedar trunk with a latch holding it closed. It was his dad’s trunk. Opening it, it was full to the brim with yellow spiral notebooks and newspaper clippings. My grandfather wrote thousands of letters to the editor of his local paper. There were poems and letters and short stories and histories. I remember sitting in my dad’s attic for hours pouring over these writings and even though my grandfather died when my dad was just 13 years old, I felt as though I knew this man.

I think I can honestly say, I know this man.

Someday, I hope to meet him when I die. I believe I will have that chance. This is the power of writing, to live on after death, not in a spiritual sense, but in a very real physical sense, for those who get to know you after you are gone.

D. Michl Lowe