This economic downturn has affected a wide range of people in this country.  In the last 12 months, both of my parents as well as my brother and sister lost their full time jobs.  Everyone does their best to remain positive, says things such as “hey, we are all healthy, we will be fine”, but there is no doubt it is an unprecidented difficult time upon us.

I’ve done my best to remain upbeat, using that “healthy” mantra, watching family and friends go through a tough stretch, and have constantly fallen back on the fact that I have a wonderful wife and two healthy kids.  However, over the past two months, that positive outlook took a rough turn for the worse, and a strange long distance encounter, was what I needed to snap out of it.

Our second son Carter was born just before Christmas.  As I wrote in a previous post, I am deathly afraid of child birth.  Nicole had a horrible pregnancy with the our oldest son, and the birth was just as bad.  For some crazy reason, the pregnancy was completely uneventful with Carter.  I kept joking that it was like she wasn’t even pregnant.  The birth was a little rough, but hey, he and his mom were healthy, and it was a great Christmas.

Around May 15, I went to Columbus on a weekend golf trip with some friends.  We do it every year, and it never fails to be a relaxing good time with the boys.  This year, right before we were going to start playing our first round, my wife called to tell me that our four month old baby Carter needed a CAT-scan right away and that his head was not growing correctly, and the doctors were ‘alarmed’.  This of course floored me, like it would any parent.  We were able to get the scan 36 hours later, and to sit there to watch your little guy get tied to a table for one of these is not exactly something I would recommend.  Thankfully, it turned out that the his brain was fine, but that he just needed to get fit with a corrective helmet to wear for two to three months.  The helmet isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it sure doesn’t make me feel good to strap it on his head and watch him start cursing at me in baby talk.

Our older son Charlie was born with a club foot.  He had to wear numerous casts for a few months and then wore corrective shoes until he was almost two years old.  At that time, it looked as if everything was healed.  He now has to go in once a year to see how things are coming along.

We just returned from a trip to Walt Disney World for his 4th birthday.  He had the time of his life, going on every single ride possible, as well as going down the hotel water slide 57 times in one day.  He did have a bit too much fun the night of his birthday,as evidence with this picture of him throwing up after eating a sundae and sprinting to the monorail to get back to the hotel before the water slide closed.  I mention it because he is a normal, hyper, crazy young boy, running around everywhere.  After his third birthday, he had his annual checkup on his foot and they said everything looked great.  He went for his last check up just Monday, and not so great.  We were told that the foot is growing incorrectly, and that he needs to have surgery to correct it.  He will be put under, have to stay the night in the hospital and be in a non weight bearing cast for six weeks.  This one was like a punch in the face to me.  It is one thing to have to put a helmet on a baby, but to put a crazy four year old in a cast and not be able to walk for at least six weeks…I still can’t imagine what it is going to be like.  I just feel so bad for the guy, and I was getting to a point where I was maybe feeling a little bit sorry for myself.

Sometimes it takes strange things to make you change your perspective, or maybe a random occurrence that makes you take a step back and assess the situation at hand.  Tuesday night, Nicole and I went to see The Dave Matthews Band at Riverbend here in Cincinnati.  I think I’ve probably been to 20 of his concerts over the past 15 years, and its a summer tradition.  Thanks to my buddy and co-worker, Brock Boser being in the Dave Matthews Band fan club all these years, we are able to get excellent seats.  This year was no exception as we were on the right side of the stage in the fifth row.  As we were hanging out listening to the music, due our seat locations, I was able to see some people somewhat back stage, but actually on the side of the stage opposite from us.  For some reason, my eye stopped on what appeared to be a family.  It was a mother, father, and what looked to be a college aged girl in a wheelchair, looking very ill.  For some reason I kept looking over there, and noticed the joy on the parents’ faces as they constantly looked at their daughter who was 25 feet away from the band watching them play.  It was kind of neat to see a group of people sharing a really poignant and somewhat private moment together, knowing their daughter was having a great time.  I pointed out the family to Nicole with the realization that in the big picture, our minor health problems with our children were not that bad.

About 45 minutes later in the show, in between songs, Dave Matthews says, “This one goes out to our new friend Natalie, who came to see us tonight.  I know it was difficult for you to get here, but we appreciate it.”  It was the coolest thing, because I’m pretty sure, absolutely nobody else in that 15,000 seat ampitheater besides the band and the crew knew who or what he was talking about.  I look over and both the mom and dad are hugging Natalie and both wiping tears from their faces.  I just thought it was so neat to do that in a way to not make a spectacle of the situation, or himself, but just that little message had to have meant the world to that family and sick girl.  The band then played the song ‘Grey Street’, which the lyrics do seem quite relevant, and a Dave Matthews geek next to me said to his friend that they have never played that song the whole tour.

It is not the best practice to have to see someone in a worse situation, to understand that what you have is not that bad, but that is exactly what happened to me that night. To witness the look on the parents face towards their child, I think it is something you only begin to understand as you become a parent.  Regardless, it was a really neat moment, and I earned some new respect for Dave Matthews for gesture he made, and from this day on, if I hear Grey Street, I will think of she and her parents.

Get well soon Natalie!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.