Dear Jumping Gymnast,

Yesterday was Monday, January 27 (the birthday, I believe of your cousin). It was ZERO degrees in Chicago and your mother woke up complaining of some pain and other details we won't get into. A few hours later we were in "Triage" at Northwestern Hospital.

Now, I must say that your mother was far more concerned than she appears in the photo.  (She just didn't want me taking a picture of her... which neither would I, if I was dressed in a hospital gown.) But by this time, they had taken various samples and started running tests. (One of which was supposed to reveal "snowflakes" when it was done.)

The most fun we had in this room as we waited for test results was listening to you! (And we were even happier to hear that you are still fine and healthy and kicking away inside your mom.)

The First Noble Truth

Dear Daughter On the Other Side of the Wall,

It is January 27, 2014 and last week the doctor told your mother she could touch the top of your head. Right now, you are ][ this close to being out here in the air with us. But you continue to swim inside your mother like the most incredible mermaid.

Sadly, out here, your dad continues to struggle with his writing routine. It's been a busy month: I've been to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah; finished the first draft of a script I must go back and polish; been struggling to make a transition to some new people at work now that your mother is going to be leaving (for a while?)

That's my rationale and excuse for not having written more to you, but it is of course, an excuse.

One thing I pray is that you find place where you can find a greater peace than I have.

Many years ago, when I was traveling in India, I met a man who is perhaps one of the top 10 wisest people I've ever met. His name was Professor Narendra Wig and he had helped make major changes in the mental health care system in India. He and I would talk about spirituality because at a professional conference where everyone was talking about medications and a model of Western medicine. I saw that he kept pushing for people to view mental illness the way that a broader population in India might.

At some point, I asked him: "Do you think there is a connection between Spirituality and Mental Illness?" He beamed the way you'll see very wise men beam and said: "I am so glad you asked that question." And then proceeded to tell me about how, "In India, you don't have to believe in God to be spiritual."

That's a complicated thought, I'm not sure I can say I completely understand. Let's just say: I believe he is talking about our way of approaching the world with Love, with what is burning INSIDE of us, not trying to define things outside of us so much.

So, what is this all about? Why am I talking about this man I met many years ago?

Well, you see, I've been bashing myself a good deal about not being "good enough", about not "getting things done that need doing." And I'm pretty sure that's not how God sees me. (Or will ever see you.)

It's hard to imagine when you are being so hard on yourself... let me try that again.... It's hard for ME to imagine that when I am being hard on MYSELF, that there is a God that loves me as much as I love you right now. I am astonished at how much I want to see your face. I am astonished at how my eyes tear up just thinking about holding you. And I'm (thankfully) not egotistical enough to think this story ends with me. There is a river far back beyond my tears that is the same river most parents feel for their unborn.

Believing in that river is what, I think, Professor Wig was talking about.

We were talking another time about the First Noble Truth of Buddhism. And the First Noble Truth is: Life is suffering. Although he was not a Buddhist, I think Professor Wig believed this too. At one meeting, when people were discussing mental illness, he offered up this catchphrase like an advertising tagline: "Just another of life's catastrophes." That "just" says volumes and the rest of the phrase spoke to his perspective among very poor people trying very hard to stay alive.

It sounds so defeatist to say that "Life is suffering." But as I pointed out, Christians say the same thing when they point to Christ crucified up on the cross. It's the first image you see when you walk into a Church, Christ crucified on the Cross.

But just like the Buddha who spoke of a Second, Third and Fourth Noble Truth, Christians (and Muslims, I believe) say that the story doesn't end there. But like any good story, you have to tell it right: if the First Noble Truth really IS suffering, what is that suffering caused by?

Perhaps I've been thinking so much about suffering, because I see the pain your mother is in, trying to sleep at night as her body makes adjustments and her hips try to accommodate this person who may JUMP out of her at any moment? Perhaps it's because I think how much I will loathe and dread ever seeing YOU suffer. Or perhaps I'm being selfish and thinking about my own inability to focus and work through some problems.

Whatever the reason, what I pray always is that you find your own way to address the Noble Truths and that when you DO suffer, that unlike your father you are better able to access the three other Noble Truths better than I have:

2nd: that the source of our suffering is clinging. (This can be clinging to material things or clinging to old ways of thinking, grudges and petty jealousy.)

3rd: that the way to end the suffering is to end the attachment. (A Buddhist teacher I had once talked about imagining a gleaming sword with which you cut that attachment. And that sword can be as simple as a breath of Awareness which is why we meditate.)

And fourth and finally, like many spiritual teachings it's sort of a tricky one, that once we've seen that we CAN end the attachments, you have to wonder: "How" and here is where different schools of spiritual teaching may differ (and amazingly how much they are similar):

For Buddhist's the path to end that suffering is called "The Eightfold Path" and goes like this:

Right Understanding
Right Thought
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration

Another thing, your mother and I did this weekend was attend a funeral for the mother of a good friend. (I am hoping like your mother it is many many years before you to a funeral.) And at that funeral, they read a passage from the Gospel of Matthew 5:1-12. It is called by Catholics, the Beatitudes, during Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. And for me, it is Jesus discussing his own "Eightfold Path":

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.
Blessed are the poor in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of even against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

As I heard a Catholic theologian once say: Jesus is NOT saying it is good to be poor, or mourn or meek... but rather when you ARE or when you DO, you are still blessed. You may not feel like you are. But you are.

As I write these words I think about how much I love you and how much I love your mother. And I know there is a river behind me that feeds that love.

You are blessed, dear daughter. Never forget that. Because if you do, that's when the suffering really begins.

Your great grandfather, grandfather, and yes… father

Dear Celestial Surfer,

I can't believe it has been nearly a month since my last entry here. I would like to think it is the holidays but there are all sorts of other things that typically sneak in and confound my writing. More things than I like to think about….

It is perhaps time to tell some of your family history. The photo that you see here is of your great grandfather, Hugo, your grandfather Hugo in the middle and me, your father, Hugh -- the goofy-grinned kid (in his favorite sailor outfit) in front: three generations of Schulze.

Your great grandfather came to the United States in the late 1920s just after the Great Depression began. Before that time, he had been a waiter working in restaurants in the south of Europe during the winter months, and then heading north to work when the weather was cooler in the summer.

The story goes that while working at a hotel restaurant in Switzerland, he and a friend were approached with an opportunity to go to New York City. They did -- and there are stories I could tell some time of there arrival in the U.S.

But before we leave Europe, we should talk about how he had left home when he was just a teenager. His mother had remarried (I'm not sure if his biological father died or if his mother had divorced him) and he did not get along well with his stepfather. When he was not quite 18 he was conscripted into the German army to enter World War I.

From the documents I've seen, he worked a machine gun on the Western Front -- one of the most bloody theaters of the war, fighting IN France on the side of the Germans. But because he was younger, he came into the war in 1917 when the war was winding down.

It was an ugly war -- where chlorine gas was used and scarred the lungs of those who did not die from it. The trench warfare was something I can only imagine (and is stunningly described in the novel Birdy, where men tunneled underground in close quarters in total, claustrophobic darkness.

One of the only stories he told my father about that war time was the end of the war….

When a cease fire was announced, all of the soldiers got up from their positions, turned around and walked home. Somewhere along the walk back to Munich (or perhaps Passau, where his sister would ultimately come to live at the confluence of three rivers), he traded his sidearm, a Luger, with a farmer for a night's lodging and food. (I always assumed this was the reason my own father (your grandfather) was so fascinated with guns.)

After the war, he became a waiter -- and eventually his travels would take him from Switzerland (most likely in German-speaking, Zurich) to New York City where he would meet my grandmother.

My grandmother, your great grandmother, was also an immigrant from Scotland who worked as a maid. After they met and were married, your great grandparents had your grandfather in New York.

This was the mid 1930's when Detroit was the fifth most populous city in the United States -- home of the booming auto industry, and your grandfather LOVED cars. [But because he was an adult during the Great Depression, he bought NOTHING on credit: not his car, not his ultimate home. He saved and bought everything in cash.]

Your great grandfather came to Detroit and became Head Waiter at one of the most prominent restaurants in downtown Detroit (I believe it was the Pontchatrain) where the auto executives would come to magnificent lunches.

Your great grandfather (on your grandfather's side) died when I was six or seven. I remember the morning my mother received the call: she had me run out to stop my father who was getting in his car to go to work. It was very sudden, a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

This year, 2013, just before your grandfather died, I asked him about his life with his father, your great grandfather. Because he worked as a waiter most nights, he came home at three or four in the morning. Apparently, my grandmother would be up to welcome home and cook him breakfast before he went to bed.

When my father and his brother would wake up, she would make them breakfast and send them on to school while your great grandfather slept. Of course, it wasn't always like that and they spent time with their father and mother too. Your great grandmother and great grandmother loved going for rides in the country; they loved the fresh air.

In the early 2000s, my father -- your grandfather -- received a call that the last remaining relative in Germany had died and that he and his brother (your great uncle) had inherited an small amount of money.

Being the child of immigrants, I don't think either one of my parents, your grandfather or grandmother (whose parents were from Ireland) had any nostalgia or interest in Europe. For their parents, it had been a place to get AWAY from and both of them had lived low-to-middle income lives. (In your grandmother's case, they were Irish poor, a whole 'nother story.)

I say all of this because I happened to be traveling through Europe at the time and took a train to Passau, where the lawyer handling the affairs of the estate eyed me very cautiously. I was taken to my great aunt's house where the few remains were there.

The grass in the side lot was very tall and it was a beautiful home where you could see a sliver of the Windorf-Passau river below. As I walked through the side lot, my pant leg was roughly scratched by a bush. When I bent down, I realized the bush was full of raspberries.

It is hard to describe how I felt lifting one of these raspberries to my lips and tasting it. You see, when I was very young, I remember your great grandfather growing raspberries in his backyard too.

I would learn after I went into the house and found a box of photos and letters that my grandfather, your great grandfather, had kept in touch with his sister who he dearly loved in all the years he was traveling across Europe, and to New York. They managed to stay in touch off and on through the war years -- and I learned later he sent her money after the war.

And in the bottom of one of the boxes in that house, below layers of summer vacation photographs and postcards, photos from the First World War -- when someone in the family (his stepfather perhaps) was an eye surgeon and was shown with regiments of bandaged men -- through photos of some family member who played clarinet for Goebbels, to some of the first color photographs showing meaty, older German women beside bright pink and red bougainvillea…. I found a black and white picture of me, in a cable knit sweater.

I am holding the little plastic bucket I used to gather raspberries in, staring a little bit surprised (as if I've been interrupted in my berry harvest) -- and on the back of the photo written in what little German I can still read are the words written in my grandfather's hand in pencil:  My first grand son.

That is (more than) enough for now. I'll return to tell a few more stories about your great grandmother, about your grandfather, and your grandmother too.

Every day prayer

Dear Blooming Flower,

With all this talk of holidays, I have been thinking a great deal about what I hope for you.

It's so difficult, given how much we all hope to impose our way of looking at things and doing things, to leave each other open to just seeing and appreciating the world. We want so much to know that our way of looking is the way others look, when each of us look at the world as different as we look from each other. When I think of what I wish for you, it is a way of seeing:

I pray you see the beauty in carnations,
in daisies and cattails.
I pray that if you cringe at touching a frog's slimy skin,
you still love looking into its those big amphibious eyes.
I pray that the skies remain clear enough for you to see the stars beyond,
and you remain curious enough to want to learn the shapes of constellations.
I pray you discover the beauty beyond randomness.
I want you to love the order of the universe and laugh at its chaos.
I pray you know the opposite of Love is not Hate, it is Fear.
I pray that you are fascinated by the stories of the poor and the rich
and you love people for who they are, not who they know.
I pray you understand that words can hurt
but that they needn't hurt you
because you are half of the magic of any spoken spell:
you get to decide if it is true for you.
(People can say many silly (and untrue) things and you mustn't, mustn't believe them.)
I pray that you love the world with curiosity and not with critique.
I pray you come to understand how much I long to see your face --
and when you do that you can imagine how God must feel wanting to see us happy.

Cattails: Part III

Dear Patient Passenger in your mother's belly,

After all of these family reflections, perhaps it is a good time to post this one photo that tells a bit more of the story of the cattails. Here is where you see the cattails opening to the wind, spreading seeds into the wind.

As I think of a holiday prayer for you, I wait for your not just outside of your mother's womb, but hoping to see you out in the world, traveling the world, like the seeds of a cattail. And wherever you land, for however long, may you find joy, reaching down into the soil of that place and knowing it deeply and truly with your heart.

Family

Dear Holiday Traveler,

I wanted to capture this image too because so often we move from place to place from meal to meal and forget the richness of all of the different people we have met.

Here is a photo I hope you will someday treasure. Your great aunt, Kathy, is featured on the left. That's you and your mother in the middle. And to the right is your great grandmother, Marion. I wish I had a few more photos of the people who were gathered around the table this Friday-after-Thanksgiving. But the one thing you should take away from seeing this is how much your mother is loved -- and so too, you.

Denver skies

Dear Little Gobbler,

So this Thanksgiving (2013), you spent the holiday with your mother and me in Denver under some of the most beautiful skies: