Denver

Somebody Call 9-1-1

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The following is an incomplete list of events I forgot to add to our real estate listing last spring when we sold our Denver house and bounced way north to our new landing spot, Fort Collins.

Halloween 2016…maybe – Hooligans decide to throw a large block through the glass rear dear of a neighbor’s house. I remember speaking to a DPD officer that night about a security system, asking him, is it worth having one? Does it work? He bluntly said, No. These people out here who are going to actually break into a home do not stop at a security system. They know what to do. They are fast and a siren isn’t going to change that. I took that to heart. We didn’t have one at the time (never did), although we still had the ADT sign in the front yard and the stickers in the window from the previous owner. We left those there. Note: Every other neighbor had a security system.

Kids watch as the criminals' truck is towed away.
Kids watch the truck involved in a crime get towed away after three months on

Late Summer 2020 – This is when things really pick up. People are bored. We’ve spent a lot of time indoors. They made us wear masks! (Cry more!) People needed to get out and do some major crime as evidenced by the moderate-sized moving truck that appears in front of the house. It is illegally parked, but at least on the far side of the street. In December of 2020, it is finally moved after I called the police, sheriff, and my city councilwoman. I did examine the truck at some point. It was empty and unlocked. The steering column had been torn up so the truck could be hot-wired, just like in the movies! Cool!

One night I woke up to some talking outside my bedroom window. I looked outside and spotted a man with a sign standing at the bottom of the stairs to our front door. He kept talking for a while and I kept watching from the window, but after thirty minutes or so he started walking up our stairs. That’s when I got a bit worried and made my way downstairs. Right before I made it to the front door he very violently tried to open it. We were fine, it was locked, but I yelled at him that he needed to stop and leave the property. The police were called and they showed up in 15 minutes. This incident did motivate me to get a Nest doorbell.

My Nest doorbell was awesome! It worked way better than the Ring doorbell and accompanying app that we have at our Fort Collins house. One of the first things our Nest doorbell caught was a man crouching on our front patio. It looked like he was trying to hide behind the planter and large pine tree that was on the NE corner of the front yard.

Initially, the neighbor’s car was shoved up onto their yard. The police put it back on the street.

During the warm, but not the warmest months, we slept with our window open, facing the front of the street, and our busy corner of Denver. We heard and saw a lot of interesting things from that window, but nothing louder than a car speeding at approximately 60mph from the east, crossing Dayton, and slamming into a parked car two houses west of us. The first car that was hit wound up in the neighbor’s yard. The other cars hit got stacked up on one another. I was at the window in a split second to see police already approaching the crash scene with lights off and guns drawn. I found out later, they were responding to a robbery at a weed shop about a mile east of us in Aurora. This was a car chase that ended in front of our house! The perp threw a gun into my neighbor’s front yard and was able to evade police.

Neighbor’s car that took the brunt of the 60mph impact.

Around this same time, a stolen car was crashed into the apartment complex in front of the house. It didn’t go through the fence, it went under it, the fence swinging upward like an old school garage door, letting the stolen vehicle neatly crash into a parking spot. The perp ran. The perp got away.

Stolen car. Driver ran away, north on Dayton.

Late one morning, a car sped down Dayton, crashing into multiple parked cars and came to a stop in the middle of the road. The owner of one vehicle came out of the apartment buildings along Dayton and began yelling at the driver, You hit my car! You hit my car! The driver of the car was standing next to his broken ride and didn’t say anything. After a long moment, he ran. The car, broken as it was, stayed there for another 12 hours before someone decided to report it. Snitches get stitches in this neighborhood. It was almost certainly a stolen car. The perp, as far as I know, got away.

A driver decides to do a u-turn in front of the house. Street not wide enough? Ah, that’s okay, I’ll just run over your new tree.

Look kids, a murder scene. I didn’t know at the time. I probably wouldn’t have walked them over there.

Most alarming was the time I noticed about a dozen cop cars three houses west of the house. They were Aurora police, which means they followed criminal activity from east of Dayton into my neighborhood, which is in the City of Denver. I went to take a look by myself and then took the kids over there. There was no sign of an ongoing threat, but just to make sure I asked an officer and he said, there’s nothing to worry about. Well, great. Time for a photo op. I found out later that night that someone had been shot on the corner three houses west of us. He was in his car. And, after being shot, he was driven eastward into Aurora a couple blocks and died. It was truly tragic. This murder remains unsolved. Since it took place, there’s a small memorial to the victim. I cleaned it up a few times before we moved away.

There was that one time we were having a nice family dinner and I was beginning to move around, do some dishes, and clean up, when I noticed a red 4Runner park right in front of the house. The two guys in the front arranged lines of coke on a pocket mirror, snorted them, and drove off. Sorry, no picture! They were so fast!

Last, but not least because this couple was fighting for years, we have this nice image of a lady on top of a moving car. She was on the phone and also yelling at the driver. I took several videos of this fight and others, certain I would catch something of interest to the police if anything seriously bad happened. Luckily, no such video exists, but these people would fight in front of our house, mostly at night, on and off for about two years. Their dialogue, much of it recorded by yours truly, can not be repeated here.

Fast forward a few months and we are spending the first night at our new house in Fort Collins. The home has a huge covered deck out back where we were enjoying the remnants of our drinks. I was thinking of the corner we left behind, the very urban setting. It’s not like we moved to the country, there are about 170,000 people living in FoCo, but still, I told Kate, “It feels like we are camping.”

A Little More About 2025

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Here is a shorter summary of just some of what this family did in 2025!

January – Love a good run on the first day of the year. A clean slate. Everything back to zero. All things feel new, even though a lot of them aren’t. London turned 11 and made her own Barbie cake! I did not do dry January!

February – I turned 42. We entered the air fryer game. Should have done that sooner. I rented a storage unit for decluttering our house and prepping it for going on the market. My mom and I get drinks at Traveling Mercies, an excellent bar at Stanley Marketplace. Girls trip to Omaha. Guys trip to Steamboat. Guys win.

March – March 6th, the house is listed. The sight of the sign puts a pit in my stomach. London completes her last ABA session. It’s the right time, I think. But at the same time, I feel scared of what life will look like without any of those sessions. The obligatory Great Wolf Lodge trip is scratched off the list. Camden had never been. We did it once for him and won’t go back. 

April – The house goes under contract. Meanwhile, we look all over SE Aurora and Centennial, even Parker, for homes, but go under contract only once, breaking contract the next day. We offer $5k over asking on one house and lose to an offer $50k over asking. I take pictures of our pristine house before serious packing up begins. I get tremendously sad about that. 

May – I wrote about that yesterday. Read it here.

June – London finished elementary school. We moved from one rental in Denver to my parents’ house in Fort Collins, where, surprise, we started looking at homes, hoping to find and close on one by the end of summer. The day before we leave for a California road trip our parked cars are slammed into by a 16-yr-old driver out at 12:30am for “snacks.” My car is later totaled. The minivan is good and we drove it the next day. It was 107 degrees in Las Vegas when we arrived and I valeted the minivan next to Lambos and Ferraris at Mandalay Bay, not joking. There were lots of pools at the hotel, but with people packed into them like sardines. The night walk along the strip was memorable and worth doing one time, but we passed on the $16 coffee in our hotel room, the minimum $150 spend per diner at the steakhouse, and Camden laughed at the thong-clad dancers strolling the street who asked him if he wanted a photo with them.

July – On to LA, which was much cooler and enjoyable. Stayed with good friends. Swam in their pool, not packed with people. Went on to Oceanside and met Kate’s family there. We did it, we went to Disneyland for the day. A team of cast members had to stuff me into Space Mountain so I could join the rest of the family on the rollercoaster. I was taller than the Chewbacca in the Star Wars area and London got to meet Rapunzel. London was overjoyed. We grilled Cardiff Crack, the best. Back in Fort Collins, we took possession of our new home on Kate’s birthday, but didn’t spend the night for a few more nights. We attended the wedding of good friends in Monument. 

August – Unpacking really got under way. The kids started school August 13th and 14th, insanely early. Their first 7 days of school were half days because it was so hot and not every school here has AC. They are attending schools I went to while I lived in Fort Collins from 1991-1999. Casa Bonita and Water World trip with the best people. The Casa really is a fun place! London starts cross country. So proud of her!

September – After I rent a U-Haul in Denver and load up all our things from the storage unit and unload all the things at the house, all of our belongings are under one roof for the first time since February. Both cars in the garage on September 25th. A big day. We meet more neighbors here in less than two months than we did in over ten years at our last house. People in FoCo are more open to talking. They’re friendlier than your average Denverite. The USAF Thunderbirds put on a show here and practice right over the house a couple times. 

October – We took a much-needed mountain weekend trip with my parents at the YMCA of the Rockies. The weather and views were perfect. My kids love the outdoors and the mountains. My parents played a role in that and I am forever thankful for it. Camden turned 8! We threw one of those big birthday parties with pizza, cake, snacks, and games. That’s not much fun at all, but Camden loved it!

November – A late fall trip to Steamboat, where it is in the 50s. I swim outdoors. I dig out our Christmas decorations from a crawlspace, which is primarily filled with Christmas decorations. I run my first Turkey Trot in Fort Collins. It’s a big race and I am happy with my time. We see the northern lights for the first time in all of our lives. 

December – I always love this month. Christmas decorations and lights are up before the month starts. London and Camden both have Christmas concerts. London still wants to visit with Santa at the Gardens on Spring Creek. We attend several excellent Christmas parties and get some time in Denver on a 60 degree day. There’s an early Christmas celebration with my parents before we travel to Omaha for a week. Omaha is mild. I manage to get in 22 miles of running while we are there. We go to Top Golf, the only place I enjoy golf. My father-in-law turns 70. We party like he’s 30. We tell the kids we are going to London this summer. They freak. We come back to Fort Collins and ring in 2026 with dear friends, good drinks, homemade pizzas (one of which I dropped on the kitchen floor), and the kids stay up until midnight for the first time. We all sleep in, sort of, like just to 7:30. That’s late for us. 

Happy New Year!

Closing Day

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How do you sum up a year? I have in the past, written blog posts under the title “The Year in Review,” or something along those lines. I started writing such a thing a couple days ago and I finished today, but it’s too long. I post the whole review and not many people are going to make it to the end. I’ll boil that down to the bones and post that later. But for now, I’ll leave you with my thoughts on May 2025. It was a big year for my family and May was the hardest, busiest, and most emotional month in a year of busy and emotional months.

May 2025 In Review

We sold our house on 5th Avenue this month. The buyers, inexplicably, wanted us to take apart a floating deck we built in between our house and our neighbor’s house to the west. My parents and Kate’s dad were there to help dismantle the deck. We enjoyed our small, but perfect backyard on that wonderful spring evening. We found a home to live in for a few weeks until the kids finish school. It’s in the same neighborhood, within walking distance of our beloved 5th Ave house.

The PODS arrived May 13th, 3 of them. They’re filled on the 14th, to the ceiling. The next day they are taken away and the house is cleaned for eleven hours, luckily, not by me. I take videos of the empty house and record voice memos of what I remember from every room, hallway, closet, and door, crying or fighting back tears in each one.

My last moment in the house is the morning we close. The kids are at school. Kate is at work. I touch the walls in the living room. I pat them. I run my hands across their textured surface. I hug them. I say goodbye to the house like an old friend, a friend of eleven years, eleven of the toughest, eleven of the best. I laugh at myself as I speak to the house and whisper into its walls, telling it to be as nice to the next family as it was to ours, telling it to be a good friend to them.

From the front door, I take one last look about ten times. The house is open concept and has a relatively small first floor so with a glance I see the dining room, kitchen, and living room. I could have stood there for the rest of the day cycling through memories from every corner of those rooms, but it was time to close that door one last time.

At the bottom of the stairs, standing on the sidewalk, I felt so lonely, like I had truly lost a friend. I called Kate and let all the emotions out. I had a mix of feelings: gratitude for this structure I just stepped out of for the last time, a sense of mourning our Denver lives, and a greater sense of fear, not knowing where we would live next, and second-guessing our decision to move at all.

But the day did not allow for much contemplation. I had to unpack and continue our sort of move-in at the temporary house. I had elementary field days to attend. I had a half marathon to run in Steamboat Springs. (Note to self: never train for a race and move at the same time ever again.)

I am grateful for the busyness of the days following our 5th Ave close. They did not allow for me to further mourn or worry about what was next. We just had to continue life as usual in Denver, just with a different place to come back to at the end of those hectic days.

Moving On

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As soon as I carefully took the kids artwork down, picking at the bits of scotch tape holding self-portraits to doors, and taking care not to rip the large piece of paper my son drew a pipe system on, the house felt different. Moving changed from this half-serious idea that has held space in our heads for two years to this real, tactile change involving paper cuts from handling cardboard boxes and sore backs from lifting just a little too much. 

Official-looking family portraits have come down, replaced by blank walls or a photo of a nondescript hillside most passers by would not recognize as Scotland. Old carpet has been torn up and tossed out and now the house smells like Carpet Exchange. The amount of furniture in the house has been trimmed down, making some rooms feel nice, but not lived in. 

Load by load to the storage unit—the first I have ever rented—the home becomes a house, the house becomes a structure. Yet, still there are memories being made, even today, that will forever be associated with this house, which I have called home for ten years, the longest I have lived in one place.

Open house after open house I begin to appreciate our house a little more. The painted walls, the shiplap entryway, the exposed I-beam in the basement so I could attach a pull-up bar, and the immaculate basement bathroom. All projects that we completed ourselves or hovered nearby acting like an overbearing super on a construction site while others did the work. 

The furniture we are keeping in the house has been moved, cleaned, and flipped around like Lego pieces, indeed, revealing long-lost Lego pieces, a vintage Fisher Price puzzle piece that has been missing since my son was four-years-old, and more of those Checkers pieces that I thought we had successfully rounded up. 

The last evidence of our family in the house are some of the most treasured items. No stager will get me to take them down and no storage unit is secure enough for them. It’s my daughter’s framed one-month handprint that is barely bigger than my thumb, resting on my desk. A polaroid of Kate and I taken by an old friend. Two pictures of the family on the beach in Mexico. A kid’s first hand-drawn family portrait. And a large picture of my namesake, Bryce Neff, pictured with his bombing group in the Korean War. All these items and more will find a new structure that will become a house that will, with time, become a home, and God-willing, lives lived in that home will produce an equally wide swath of life as we have seen on 5th Ave.

God-willing.

Welcome to the Pump House: Adventures in Fatherhood and Breast Milk Management

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A version of this post appeared on my blog years ago when London wasn’t even a year old. But I just tweaked it a bit, slimmed it down , and added here and there. I think it’s better now. Here it is…

Never in my wildest dreams, as I prepared for fatherhood, did I think I was going to spend so much time with lactation nurses, reviewing the intricacies of hand expressing (including motions), analyzing breast milk volumes, discussing engorgement, and just how much breast milk one could fit in a chest freezer.

A few hours prior to my meeting with lactation consultants, thinking there were three more months to learn these things, I didn’t even know lactation nurses existed. I knew that some babies were born prematurely, but I didn’t know my wife’s breast milk would still come in just as early as our daughter wanted out at 26 weeks gestation.

So it was that our 109-day stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) started with a crash course in breast milk. Within those first days of life for my daughter (London), my wife (Kate) and I spoke at great length with not just one lactation nurse, but several of them about breast milk and breasts, starting with a nurse asking my wife if she was going to pump breastmilk. Partly due to the trauma of the last 24 hours, and partly due to my complete lack of knowledge about breastfeeding, I had not thought a bit about breast milk or pumping. Kate was of a similar mindset at that particular moment, but we were both satisfied to know that there was a good chance Kate’s milk would come in. The early drops of colostrum, the nutrient-dense milk first released by the mammary glands, often come in shortly after the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, no matter the gestational age.

A couple of hours later a lactation nurse wheeled into our room something that looked like a medieval torture device. They were calling it the Symphony. They hooked Kate up to it and it hummed and sucked for 18 minutes. At the end of that first session, we could just barely make out two milliliters of colostrum. A few hours later Kate produced 2.6ml and then later that night 3.8ml. The next day, January 31, marked Kate’s first 24 hours of pumping. She produced 32.6ml that day, or 1.1 ounce. The lactation team handed us a log with the direction that we were to write down when Kate pumped, for how long, and the total volume.

We then received a DVD to watch, which would apparently help Kate get more milk by hand expressing and provide tips to alleviate the pain of engorgement. We were to watch it and return it to the NICU team afterwards. That same day, we popped the DVD into my laptop to watch some before going to bed. One minute into this educational video, the biggest breast and nipple either of us had seen appeared on screen. Kate laughed so hard she began to worry she might injure herself being only two days clear of a C-section. Everything hurt. If we continued watching, we put Kate’s health at risk. I slammed the laptop shut. Tears ran down our cheeks from laughing so hard.

Who knows who is responsible for making this particular lactation video, but may I make one small suggestion on behalf of my wife and all women who have recently had C-sections? Great. Do not make the first breasts on the video also be the largest breasts known to mankind. They should not be comically large, needing 3-4 hands to get them under control. In fact, this video is a danger to new mothers everywhere, they might literally bust open their gut laughing from it, like we almost did.

Thus, it fell on me to watch the lactation video alone, gleaning from it any helpful tips and then sharing them with Kate. She was impressed. It wasn’t like Kate’s breast milk volumes needed any help. Not long after London was born, I was spending part of everyday rearranging containers of breast milk in the chest freezer in the basement—the chest freezer we needed to buy solely to store breast milk. Kate and I would joke that I knew more about hand expressing breast milk than she did so I should print up some business cards and walk around the NICU offering my services to anyone who needed them. Hand Expressions by Bryce. Simple and to the point.

By day of life 57 for our little girl, Kate was producing 1,863ml a day, or 63oz of breast milk. To put that in perspective, London was fed a total of 800ml on day 57, the most she had ever consumed in one day. In fact, it took London a long time to drink as much milk in one day as Kate got from one 20-minute pump. A point was reached where no amount of rearranging the breast milk in the freezer would make room for more. I picked up a second chest freezer at Costco and Kate started to fill that, too.

For the months London was in the NICU we rented a Symphony pump, which at the time retailed for $1500-2500, and kept it in our bedroom. We started to call it the pump house. When at home, Kate disappeared every three to four hours to spend some quality time with the Symphony. As all moms know that schedule wreaks havoc on sleep and work responsibilities, but Kate did an excellent job. I did what I could by waking with her every time throughout the night, assisting in bottling of the milk, labeling and recording volumes, washing pump parts, and then delivering milk to the freezers in the basement. So, at our house, at least two times a night, Netflix and chill was swapped out for Netflix and pump.

As Kate tapered off the pump, we were just filling up the second chest freezer and the lactation nurses understood why Kate was putting an end to pumping. She had developed a reputation in the NICU as a super producer. At London’s discharge, on May 19th, 109 days after she was born, the NICU staff wrote messages to us. One of our favorites from the lactation team wrote, “Your mom was a rock star with pumping. She could have fed three babies in the NICU!”

Next week, London will be six-months-old and I can thaw breast milk from three months back. And right now it’s lunch time for the little girl, to the chest freezer I go.

A Little Remorse

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I am just one of many Harris voters who know people who voted for Trump. They are in my family. They are friends. Some of them are acquaintances. I know people who abstained from voting because they could not bring themselves to vote for any presidential candidate. Odds are, if you voted for Harris, you know these people too and, there is a very good chance, you find yourself completely dismayed at the absolute silence from this crowd, like I do.

Not a peep from anyone about this gem from yesterday: Federal cuts to the World Trade Center Health Program have resulted in a 23% reduction in the agency’s staffing and could put 9/11 survivors at risk, critics said Tuesday. New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have already reached out to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., demanding the “insulting” and “un-American” cuts to the program be rescinded.

The people who have done this have made a living off of, and risen to power on, calling anyone who does not support them or their views un-American. Yet, this is maybe the most un-American thing I have seen in the news this week and, if you haven’t been paying attention, there have been a lot of un-American blockbusters lately.

How about this one: Trump claims Ukraine started the war with Russia. Do my family members who follow Trump on Instagram or who think Tucker Carlson is a journalist recognize how dangerous appeasing Putin is? I grew up in an America in which people did not aspire to be Neville Chamberlain. If you have to look that name up, you’re part of the problem.

As far as I know, Trump supporters in my life enjoy the outdoors, including our National Parks, but their support of him has directly led to extreme staffing shortages at nearly all parks and monuments. Already, hours of visitor centers and other outposts within parks have had to limit their hours of operation. To be fair, many parks faced a staffing shortage before Trump took office the second time around, but now, things are about to get much worse… “The only locksmith at Yosemite National Park in California, the sole EMT ranger at neighboring Devils Postpile National Monument, an experienced sled dog musher in Alaska’s Denali National Park. These are just a few of the several thousand national parks and forests employees abruptly terminated last week by the Trump administration, in what some are calling the “Valentine’s Day massacre.” You better head to a park soon. Otherwise, no one can tell you for sure if they will be open this summer or even have enough staff to welcome visitors.

I have been sharing my outrage on social media almost every day since Trump was elected. I have dozens of friends who have lost their jobs or are expecting an email at any time of day to let them know they have been fired.

Yet, not one word of regret. Not one public expression of worry for democracy, federal employees (their families, livelihoods, health insurance), air travel safety, a prepubescent Elon disciple fiddling with your SSN or bank account numbers, or the rampant McCarthyism spreading into every corner of our government.

A friend told me, “I want the people I know who voted for him to admit they made a mistake, but they’re watching a news station [Fox News] that consistently tells them they’re winning.”

I so want this too. Even if it’s not regret. I would take, I voted for him, but now I am really concerned about this or that…. That would be so refreshing to hear. Show us you care. Show us hesitancy.

But we all want to be right all the time. We hate to swallow our pride and admit a mistake. Like we can’t be against something until it directly bites us in the ass. That is how Trump supporters are, I guess, forging ahead. I mean, that, plus cognitive dissonance and the Fox News IV drip.

Rising above the din of American democracy and institutions crumbling is the loudest sound of all, the silence of those who are watching it all burn down.

The Fork In The Road Email

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Just in case you have not read the now infamous email sent to federal employees over a week ago I have included it in this post. As a reminder, Elon Musk sent an email to Twitter employees in 2022 similarly titled. Ultimately, he fired 80% of Twitter employees. The email to federal employees reads as follows:

(No Salutation)

During the first week of his administration, President Trump issued a number of directives concerning the federal workforce. Among those directives, the President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit. As a result of the above orders, the reform of the federal workforce will be significant.

The reformed federal workforce will be built around four pillars:

  1. Return to Office: The substantial majority of federal employees who have been working remotely since Covid will be required to return to their physical offices five days a week. Going forward, we also expect our physical offices to undergo meaningful consolidation and divestitures, potentially resulting in physical office relocations for a number of federal workers.
  2. Performance Culture: The federal workforce should be comprised of the best America has to offer. We will insist on excellence at every level – our performance standards will be updated to reward and promote those that exceed expectations and address in a fair and open way those who do not meet the high standards which the taxpayers of this country have a right to demand.
  3. More streamlined and flexible workforce: While a few agencies and even branches of the military are likely to see increases in the size of their workforce, the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.
  4. Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.

Each of the pillars outlined above will be pursued in accordance with applicable law, consistent with your agency’s policies, and to the extent permitted under relevant collective-bargaining agreements.

If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.

If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program. This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 6. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason). The details of this separation plan can be found below.

Whichever path you choose, we thank you for your service to The United States of America.

******************************************************

Upon review of the below deferred resignation letter, if you wish to resign:

  1. Select “Reply” to this email. You must reply from your government account. A reply from an account other than your government account will not be accepted.
  2. Type the word “Resign” into the body of this replay email. Hit “Send”.

THE LAST DAY TO ACCEPT THE DEFERRED RESIGNATION PROGRAM IS FEBRUARY 6, 2025.

Deferred resignation is available to all full-time federal employees except for military personnel of the armed forces, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and those in any other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency.

DEFERRED RESIGNATION LETTER

January 28, 2025

Please accept this letter as my formal resignation from employment with my employing agency, effective September 30, 2025. I understand that I have the right to accelerate, but not extend, my resignation date if I wish to take advantage of the deferred resignation program. I also understand that if I am (or become) eligible for early or normal retirement before my resignation date, that I retain the right to elect early or normal retirement (once eligible) at any point prior to my resignation date.

Given my impending resignation, I understand I will be exempt from any “Return to Office” requirements pursuant to recent directives and that I will maintain my current compensation and retain all existing benefits (including but not limited to retirement accruals) until my final resignation date.

I am certain of my decision to resign and my choice to resign is fully voluntary. I understand my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date.

I am committed to ensuring a smooth transition during my remaining time at my employing agency. Accordingly, I will assist my employing agency with completing reasonable and customary tasks and processes to facilitate my departure.

I understand that my acceptance of this offer will be sent to the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) which will then share it with my agency employer. I hereby consent to OPM receiving, reviewing, and forwarding my acceptance.

*********************************************************************************************************

*************

Upon submission of your resignation, you will receive a confirmation email acknowledging receipt of your email. Any replies to this email shall be for the exclusive use of accepting the deferred resignation letter. Any other replies to this email will not be reviewed, forwarded, or retained other than as required by applicable federal records laws.

Once your resignation is validly sent and received, the human resources department of your employing agency will contact you to complete additional documentation, if any.

END OF EMAIL.

I will post again next week and include my comments to several of these disturbingly-worded sentences. Have a good weekend.

A Drive Up Dayton

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As I drive Dayton Street north to take my kids to school the city boundaries are so zig-zagged that I may be in Denver one block and in Aurora the next, never really quite knowing which city I am in from the moment I turn onto the street until I turn off of it in the Central Park neighborhood of Denver.

My house borders Dayton in southeast Denver, so I start the drive there, but I am quickly surrounded by the western edge of Aurora, the city that Trump claims has been taken over by a Venezuelan gang. I even drive within one block of the Edge at Lowry apartments, which made national headlines in the late summer/early fall when a ring doorbell camera recorded armed gang members knocking on an apartment door. Further north I drive by Vintage Theater, a staple among theater venues in the greater Denver area.

When Dayton approaches and crosses Colfax is when things get interesting. Colfax is bustling any time of day, but in the morning it’s full of pedestrians and bus riders going to and from school and work. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to how pedestrians cross the street here or how drivers navigate the madness.

Once north of Colfax, Dayton is lined with day laborers who have congregated there for over two decades. They line the sidewalks with their lunches (if they are lucky enough to have them) and wave at any car that drives by, hoping the driver is looking to hire them for a project. When they wave at me, I don’t wave back, out of not wanting to give them some false hope. When a car does pull over though, it is surrounded and overwhelmed by people willing to work on just about any project I imagine. Regardless of the weather or time of year, Dayton Street from Colfax to 16th Ave is lined with those willing to work. I have seen a hundred workers on this block of Dayton.

Naturally, I have been interested in how Trump’s policies would affect this block of Dayton, especially since it is in Aurora and Trump stated that immigration raids would start in this city. Well, he’s a bit late, so he lied again, but they did start yesterday. Even prior to the raids, the number of day laborers drastically decreased. This morning, I counted five of them on the street, still friendly, still waving, still eager to do the work no one else is going to do.

Where have the rest gone? Well, that is a good question and I think in the days, weeks, and months ahead we might get answers or we might not, but for starters here is a fact (remember those?): based on the promised mass deportation, “Gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years.” It is not a stretch to conclude either that day laborers who used to get regular work by lining the sidewalks of Dayton have been forced into a cat and mouse game with ICE agents, in which the immigrants might become more and more desperate to make a living here in Aurora or Denver. Surely, that will be the case for some immigrants. Where do they look for work now? Pushing them off the streets into the dark recesses of an Aurora apartment complex for the entire day can’t be good. They are looking for decent pay and constructive work in the daytime. When forced onto the streets at nighttime, the same might not be said. This would be a very unfortunate result of ICE raids here in Denver and elsewhere, but do keep in mind this is a population that respects the rule of law here in the US more than US-born Americans. So, they have that going for them, even though the strongest and most capable government in the world is not willing to help them anymore.

Do You Love What You Do?

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This was a journal prompt I had almost four years ago. I answered it this way on February 21, 2021…

This is the question, isn’t it? It has been for quite some time, the question that gives me pause, makes me stop in my tracks, that question that forces me to take a good long look at what I do and, more importantly, am I any good at it? My answer for the majority of the time I have been an at-home dad has been, “Yes.”

But there are always buts. That’s the nature of the beast. The nature of any job you love. On a good day I love 80-90% of what I do. If the day is not going well, that number drops to 10-30%.

I consider being a stay-at-home dad (SAHD) a job. People who scoff at that and/or give me a weird look when I tell them this have never been a full-time at home parent with two kids and most domestic duties/responsibilities on their plate. It’s really not realistic to expect to do a lot more day to day, especially if you are also prioritizing time spent with a spouse and children, which, I know, I have the luxury of doing.

There was a time in 2019 to early 2020 that I drove for Lyft. The driving force, dad joke, for this was impending therapy bills for London that could amount to an extra $900 a month. They did for a while and driving for Lyft really helped ease the burden of all those $30 copays. Did I love Lyft though? No, but I do have some decent stories from the experience.

What I have loved more than anything else about being a SAHD is that I see nearly every moment of my kids’ young lives. I have been there for all the firsts. Now that London is at school M-F from 8:15 to 2:00, I have this weird feeling and it simply stems from someone else being in charge of her during those hours. It’s much more pronounced now that she is in FT school than it was at Montview where it was just a three-hour day or 5.5-hour days at kindergarten at Montview.

My three years with London before she went to Montview are years I absolutely loved. That’s not to say they were without struggle, but they were great. We had a lot of freedom. Now I have that opportunity with Camden. Of course, the pandemic has made the last year very difficult, but 2021 is going to be better. We have renewed memberships at the zoo and the DMNS and I hope to have more daytime adventures with Camden, more like the years I had with London, hopping from one museum to another with stops at the zoo and long lost parks in between.

For a long time now I have had this goal of being a SAHD until Camden goes to school either part-time or full-time. There is a possibility of him going to FT preschool [he did not]. If that works then my time as a FT SAHD is going to end I think. I have no idea what I will do next. Sometimes I think coaching swimming might be in my future once again. But collegiately speaking, there are not good options in Colorado. Perhaps something a little more low-key, but I don’t like the idea of that becoming a major chapter in my career arc.

I can predict the future though. Whatever I do next and until my life ends I will be grateful for these years. I will likely look back on them as the best of our lives. It hurts so much to know that they come to an end. I would choose to relive all of this again; all of the strife, the scary days, the difficult and dark days, and all of the loneliness that comes with being a SAHD, just so that I could have my loving 3-yr-old Camden and 7-yr-old London run into my arms again and again, without ever tiring of it. So, yeah, I do love what I do.

On My 10th Father’s Day

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This could be my last summer as a full-time stay-at-home dad. As much as I need and crave time away from my kids, after less than 96 hours without them, I miss them dearly. Their squeals, laughs, pitter patter of small feet, noises from the kitchen as I wonder what they’re helping themselves too. Even sometimes their cries, when the silence without them feels like a suffocating blanket of absence.

Being alone is very nice. More time to catch up on the projects you’ve been meaning to do. A lot more time to read that book catching dust wherever you last set it. And an abundance of time to binge the newest buzzy show. There is just a lot more time to busy yourself with work, entertainment, things. And you can do all of it with minimal interruptions or, if you prefer, in absolute silence.

But after a little bit, after you get a taste of all those things that you were missing and that you have now done, there’s something else. There are questions in the quiet. Is this all there is? If this was life all the time would I get sick of it? Would solitary pursuits give way to success, self-absorption, or both? Would I feel like I am missing out on something? Would I get lonely or would my spouse be enough? Would she get lonely? Even questions about my far flung end arise. Will we arrive graying and wrinkled at the end of our lives wondering what could have been? Who are we missing? Who could be by our side now as we live our last days? What being/s will we never know because we do not have a child? I feel like the what-ifs would continue stacking up and then it would be too late.

What I don’t spend time doing is wondering what I could give to the world or to society if I did not have kids. Sure, it could be something great, but would it be as awe-inspiring, humbling, and as terrifying as having created a life? No. As holding the smallest hand in the pad of your index finger? No. As head-spinning as bearing witness to how fast the early years of life fly by? No. As proud a moment when you see your child shed a bit of your imprint on them to become someone wholly new, someone independent from you, but still your heart? No. As terrifying as the moment you realize they will spend many, many years on this Earth without you and you won’t be able to rush to their side anymore at the first sound of trouble, pain, or loneliness? I mean, the sadness of that thought could be enough to drive you to never have a kid, but it’s only a thought that parents can truly understand. And, by then, it’s too late. That is the risk we take. And there are big risks, but I know the answers to the questions above. Sometimes they get a little hazy and I feel the what-ifs rush in, but then I get a few days away from all their smiles, noises, questions, innocence, and imaginative everythings and the answers crystallize again into a sharp relief against a life without them.

I know I could give nothing to the world more precious and more important than them. I know the questions in the quiet would eat me up, but I know the answers to them and, for that, I am grateful.

Happy Father’s Day.

Going Wireless

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Nowadays, everything is going wireless. We have wireless video game controllers (which I still am not used to), wireless watches that answer phone calls (not perfected yet), wireless headphones, hands-free calling, and voice-activated phones. I remember being really impressed with wireless phones in the home.

Here at the Perica household we are going to keep the trend alive.

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We are going to have a wireless baby. It’s true. I hear it is all the rage. We are late to the trend, but we were afraid to be early adopters of this newfangled technology.

Though going wireless will give us a freedom we have never had with a newborn, it will not be without sacrifice. For example, the option of being able to pump a meal into your newborn at just the right time regardless of whether they are awake to eat is truly handy. The food just pumps right out of an IV bag on a hospital rod in your living room and it goes right into your baby’s stomach via a tube that you get to insert yourself and feed down to the stomach.

Also nice, was knowing my baby’s heart rate and oxygen saturation every second of the night by connecting more wires to the baby. If ever there was a slight hiccup, we would be notified in the middle of our sleep by a fire alarm basically.

Lastly, there was the convenience of forcing oxygen into my baby. With oxygen tanks on every floor of my house an_BKP2796d oxygen tanks in the car, in the stroller, in my backpack, I always knew the baby was getting oxygen. In the rare case my baby looked a little winded or was turning blue, all I had to do was walk over to the giant oxygen tank in my living room and let her loose up to 1/4 flow. Baby turns the right color, but falls asleep right before it is dinner time. Not to worry. This is why there is a nasogastric tube, feeding at the right time is always an option.

Now that people have been having wireless babies for many years, we feel comfortable moving onto this post-modern way of having a newborn. We are happy, blessed, and excited to welcome a wireless baby into our family in the very near future.

I Needed A Subject

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As a creative, there is nothing quite as painful as being told what you’re putting out there is not very unique. When I was told this, it basically boiled down to, and I’m paraphrasing here, “People have gone through much worse…There are lots of stay-at-home parents…What you are doing isn’t special.”

These words struck me in a part of my heart that the world had not calloused over, a part that my own cynicism had not hardened. Their aim was true, but the words were not. Nevertheless, they hurt at the moment and they still hurt. They made me second guess. But they’re not going to stop me. I hope other creatives don’t let the people who don’t understand their art destroy their drive to make it.

My drive was fully realized the moment London arrived in my life, as I expressed to a dear friend in an email on March 24, 2014, nearly two months after London was born:

For a long time I’ve questioned whether I will ever write for a career, as I’ve dreamed of most of my life. Besides getting rejected from MFA programs four years ago, I’ve also had my doubts that I had anything worth writing about. Clearer than ever, I have an answer to that now. I’m not sure what form that might take, but I have a story to tell from this whole experience. This also dawned on me within the first day or two after London’s birth. And in a way, it felt like God was saying, “This is it. This is what you’ll write about.” That has rattled me, probably because it is the truth. Pure, distilled truth.

Years later, I don’t know exactly what form that might take and I recognize the story is just starting. But I hear the still, small voice…This is it. This is what you’ll write about.

Published

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What seems like two years ago, I submitted a short essay to the Denver Post. To my delight, I heard back from them. They wrote that my essay was being considered for online publication as a guest commentary. A couple months passed and I hadn’t heard anything from them so I emailed the Post again. They wrote back, saying that my essay was still in the queue and I would be notified if it was published. I maintained my optimism for about one more month and then, like all writers often do, I gave up all hope. I started wearing Crocs, drinking Folgers, and bought tighty whities in bulk at Costco.

Skip ahead to 2017 and I am half-heartedly looking for writing gigs when I do a quick self Google. I was curious if any of my writing was available on the web still. One of the top results was a Denver Post page titled, “Guest Commentary: Tiny hands change everything.” I clicked on the link. I confirmed that it was my work and noted the date. July 17, 2015. UPDATED April 24, 2016.

The photo with the commentary is of an adult hand, one finger of which is grasped by a tiny baby. This is not a photo of hands I know. I could have provided a better photo if they had told me I was going to be published.

Like this one…

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And then I read the words. Thoughtful, touching, but flawed. Like nearly everything I write, I only thought it was decent or, at best, good, at the time I wrote it. Now, almost two years later, it strikes me as insufficient, short, even a little cheesy. I would have been happier to link to it back in July of 2015. Linking to it now is anticlimactic. It feels like I am sharing a draft with you. Nonetheless, for it to appear on the Denver Post‘s website and for me to not share that on this blog does not feel right. Here is the article.

Have a great weekend.

 

Emboldened by a Trump Victory, No, Not That Kind of Emboldened

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Like many of you, I was late to bed on Election Day. The morning after, I was early to rise, unfortunately remembering right away that Donald Trump just became the next President-elect. I hadn’t slept well. I had a headache. And I had six miles to tick off the training calendar. Hoping that the run would distance me from America’s new reality, I welcomed the strides ahead more than I typically do before the sun rises.

The one thing that struck me as I ran my usual route was how quiet this morning was. There was little traffic in the usually congested roundabouts. Even less traffic on the sidewalks. I had a sense there weren’t as many people joyfully embracing the morning in the aftermath of this election. Of course, I live in Denver County, where Trump earned less than 19% support; I wasn’t expecting to run into a lot of cheery people. But the atmosphere was something different than disappointment. It was somber. I had a sense people were mourning in those dawn hours.

After my run, it was back to reality, which this morning included getting through breakfast with my two-year-old daughter without my coffee supplement. As soon as possible, we were out the door to replenish the coffee bean container in the kitchen. I drove to the nearest coffee shop, which for me, happens to be a Starbucks. In I walked with London and I had this peculiar feeling. I looked around at the clientele, not surprised to see the shop was already full of immigrants, as this particular Starbucks always has a very diverse customer base.

I was sad. I could feel it on my face. But the peculiar feeling was shame. For the first time in my life, I had a sense of shame from being white. I wanted to announce to the whole café, “It wasn’t my fault. I voted for Clinton.”

And I wanted to say that I was sorry. To the Muslim barista, I am sorry. To the nice Ethiopian men sharing the Starbucks patio with London and I, I am sorry. To the immigrants sipping their morning espresso, I am sorry.

We have heard a lot about those people who have been emboldened by a Trump victory. The KKK, the racists, the xenophobes, and all the bigots out there think it’s their time.

Well, show them that it isn’t. Be emboldened to greet with open arms, a smile, or a handshake, those who Trump and his deep base have disparaged. Women, immigrants, non-whites, Muslims, Jews, or Mitt Romney. You shouldn’t have to look far. Go out there and be better.

Put Down Your Phone

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It is such a joy to be able to read Andrew Sullivan again. Last week’s New York Magazine features a lengthy article about Sullivan’s rehab from blogging and his sustained connectivity to news, devices, and the internet. fullsizerender

I know from time to time I am on my phone way too much, especially in front of London, so reading this gave me several pangs of guilt, but it helped. Since I finished it I have been more aware of my screen time throughout the day and night. I have tried to cut back, but I also know that the lessons learned from reading Sullivan’s latest piece will likely fade. This should be on an annual required reading list.

The Body-Shaming Candidate

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During the last two presidential campaigns I wrote blogs primarily about politics.

So far, in 2016, I’ve stayed away from blogging political on here. But election day will be here very quickly and I need to say a few things about this election, specifically about one of the candidates. I’ll get around to posting my thoughts on Mr. Trump, but for now I wanted to share this one commercial with you. It is made by Donald Trump himself, but it is an ad paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump merely provided all the material.

As a father of a beloved, precious little girl, Secretary Clinton could not have produced a better commercial. When you’re running against a candidate who thinks of women “as a collection of sex toys” (Comedian Samantha Bee’s words) reminding all the fathers of little girls all over this great land of Trump’s distaste for women is the most powerful message you can send.

I’ll Be Back

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Since I threw it out there that I was going for a sub-40 10k time in this year’s IMG_9019BolderBoulder, it is with some disappointment and a lot of frustration that I now have to report there was no sub-40 time from me on Monday.

I am still thinking about all that went wrong early Monday morning and I have come up with a number of reasons (or excuses, if you like) that could have negatively effected my performance.

1. I had too much to drink before the race. I had to get up at 4:45 to make it to the start of the race that morning. I think all that time tricked me into thinking I could have a large coffee, 2 bananas, a big spoon of peanut butter, and a little water before my race. Although I was done eating and drinking by 6:10, 45 minutes before my wave started, this was way too much to consume before a race. I haven’t normally had that much to eat and drink before a race so I don’t know why I did something different on the day of the BolderBoulder. It’s a rookie mistake and I’m embarrassed by it. In previous running races–all 4 of them–I’ve had at most one banana, a little peanut butter, and maybe 10-12 ounces of water.

2. I took the first mile out too fast. 6:07 on my GPS watch. 6:11 on official results. Both are too fast for me, but it’s very hard at the start of a race to not let the energy get the best of you. You feel good. You are racing with the biggest group of fast runners you have seen. You stupidly think that you can maintain said pace because you still feel good. Of course I felt good. It was the first, damn mile. If I was running the race again right now I would slow down to a 6:30 for that first mile and try to maintain that through the first four miles, then try to pick it up for the last 2.2. In a 6-mile race a couple weeks ago my first mile was 6:36, then 6:37, and 6:34. I was hurting in mile 4 and 5, but still kept it under 7 minutes and then in mile 6 I had enough energy left for a 6:24. Mile 6 in Monday’s race was 8:02.67. Doh! I straight up walked 50 yards of that. It was gross.

3. I underestimated the Bolder Boulder course. There isn’t much of an incline in the first four miles, but it’s just enough to break you down if you underestimate it. I didn’t think it would prove to be that sapping to my legs, but it was. It’s certainly not an ideal course to set your PR on. That said, I haven’t been running long, so I set a PR (42:29), but was nowhere near my goal time.

4. I should have gone out for easy runs on Saturday and Sunday. This was the first time that I’ve tapered off a serious running regimen so instead of taking one day off my feet, I took two. I thought two might be necessary because I am a little more muscular than your avid runner. In hindsight, I think a 20-minute easy run on Saturday and a 10-minute easy run on Sunday would have been ideal.

5. My training program needs more interval work in it. I have already found good alternative programs to use for a sub-40 minute 10k. The regimens  are all about 10-14 weeks long and one of them has at least two, sometimes three rest or active rest days, which I certainly need.

6. Although my left foot did not bother me on Monday, something may be wrong with it. Since it was giving me substantial pain during the last two weeks of training, I did cut back on my interval training by turning fast 400s into fast sprints the length of a soccer field. That may have taken a slight edge off my fitness level, but I would not give this too much weight. That is why this is reason six, not one.

As far as the Bolder Boulder goes, I will compete next year and I have made some goals for that race. 1. Beat this year’s time. 2. Don’t vomit. 3. Don’t require medical attention. 4. Don’t take it out so fast. 5. Don’t drink a tumbler of coffee an hour before you run.

I will be happier and I will feel better after next year’s race if I obey these commands.

Drinking on Monday Starts at 8…am

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For the last ten weeks I have been training for the Bolder Boulder.

This running thing is pretty new to me. I competed in my first 10k on Thanksgiving day last year. Since then, I’ve tried two 5k races and another 10k.

Before those races, I ran in one 5k at the Milwaukee Zoo in 2008. That race doesn’t really count. Between 2008 and the turkey trot in 2015, running was not a hobby. I still hit the pavement every once in a while, but it was merely for cardio.

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The start of the A Wave at the Bolder Boulder. Just looking at this gets my heart racing.

Part of the reason I have kept on competing since the turkey trot is because the racing conditions were so horrible then. It was 32 and raining and the trail was 2-6 inch thick mud. My time was awful. The last three miles of the race were run in 7:50, 9:53, and 7:24. Can you tell which mile I fell twice on, nearly impaling my hand on a very narrow tree stump?

I think it was soon after that race I decided I needed another shot at a 10k and I instantly thought of the Bolder Boulder. For much of my life I’ve lived within a 45 minute drive of Boulder and have never thought about entering the race.

The race is five days out and today I realized I haven’t trained this hard for a competition since training for my last swim meet as a collegiate swimmer in 2005. I am actually tapering off of what was, for me at least, a tough training schedule. I’ve even shunned a daily beer or beers for all of May, which has been almost as hard for me to do as the running. I think I have had two drinks since the start of May. That Oskar Blues beer after I finish my race at Folsom Field is going to taste so good.

For many of my training runs I had to literally push my training partner. For London, it has been an easy training schedule. She gets a cushy ride in the Mountain Buggy, sips away at her water cup, throws it from the stroller when she decides it’s cramping her style, and kicks off her shoes whenever desired. Her stroller ain’t light and neither is she, weighing in at 35 pounds, but I was thankful to be pushing just one kid over the last ten weeks.

On Monday morning, London will just be having her breakfast when my wave (AA) goes off at 6:56. I get so anxious just thinking about it. I’m not sure what I will think of the crowd. I am hoping to just lock onto a group running my pace and zone out for four, maybe even five miles before I think about the rest of the ground to be covered.

My goal is to come home on Monday with one extra t-shirt, one that says Sub 40 Club on it. With luck, it’ll fit me.

Prayers & the People

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While London was in the NICU, I listened to Coldplay’s Ghost Stories religiously. I spent a lot of time meditating on one refrain in a particular song called “Magic.” The lyrics read:

And if you were to ask me
After all that we’ve been through
“Still believe in magic?”
Well yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Of course I do

Although when I thought about the lyrics, I would replace the word “magic” with the word “prayer.” And I would ask myself over and over again, “Still believe in prayer?” With all my heart I wanted to answer with an earnest, “Yes,” and for a while I did not have an answer.

Why couldn’t I find that earnest “Yes”? I thought about that every day while London was in the hospital and nearly every day since. After all that thinking, I am able to point to a number of reasons.

I have written on here before that not all NICU stories have happy endings. It may come as no surprise, but while we were in the NICU we were witnesses to some sad stories. Within two weeks of London’s birth, the baby in the next pod over died. I remember hearing some of the father’s last words to his daughter and then needing to step behind our curtain because I couldn’t hold back tears.

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Praying over London. What else?

Throughout London’s NICU experience we had a tremendous number of people praying for her. We were praying for her. And when we would receive good news concerning London’s health, people would be quick to thank Jesus.

I know there were people praying for that baby next-door. But when she died, I don’t know if people were talking about how much they prayed for her. When prayers are answered, people are quick to heap praise on God, but all too often God doesn’t enter the conversation when prayers aren’t answered. There is just a deep sense of loss (in the case mentioned above, loss of a child) and betrayal.

It is the absence of God in conversation following something like a loss of a child, whose survival was clearly being prayed for, that really grates across my soul. And as I let it grate more and more on me, doubt about the fate of my own child crept into my thoughts. Doubt about the ability of prayer to reduce swelling in London’s brain. Doubt about the ability of prayer to make one medication work better than the next. Doubt about the ability of prayer to make London’s lungs flourish.

Yet, I prayed, even though what I had seen in the NICU was doing its best to give me a cynical attitude toward God’s ability to give my daughter a fighting chance. But as I stood next to Kate and watched London seize up, turn blue from head to toe, and watched a team of doctors rush over to her bedside, prayer was the only thing I could hold onto despite clinging to Kate. I desperately prayed over and over, “Don’t let my daughter die.”

Again and again, I was exposed to suffering. Much of the time it was parental suffering, the kind you would expect parents to go through when their baby weighs two pounds. And, at times, it was the raw exposure to parents suffering the death of a newborn, as mentioned above.

In a new way, I was becoming aware of the fragility of my own faith. I had reached the bottom of my soul and I had expected to bounce back and come out better than ever, but I had gone crashing through it, revealing new limits to understanding and faith. This surprised me because I had not lost anyone. Many people endure far worse before they reach the point I reached. However we get there though, we often discover the same thing:

…Suffering gives people a more accurate sense of their own limitations, what they can control and cannot control. When people are thrust down into these deeper zones, they are forced to confront the fact they can’t determine what goes on there.

Lack of control. I had felt it before in my life, but not to this degree so it was easy to say, well, if I don’t have control, and the nurses don’t have control, and the doctors with all their tricks and knowledge don’t have control, then nothing can have control over this.

But doubt is a two-way street. As I doubted in prayer’s ability to heal every last weak and broken thing in my daughter’s body, I also doubted my newfound doubt. I didn’t know for sure that prayer didn’t work. I have prayed all my life for all sorts of things. Some prayers were answered. Some were not. A voice in my head kept saying, why stop now? Because I was afraid, afraid of not having this prayer answered exactly the way I wanted it to be answered. That felt really selfish. It is selfish. But I had prayed this long, I wasn’t going to stop when it came to praying for my daughter’s health.

I guess what tragedy does to you, or, in our case, what a really long stay in the NICU can do to you, is to remind you, just in case you have forgotten, that you are not in control. You never were, despite how good things were going for you. And, you never will be. I felt like this left me with two options. One, surrender to God and put my faith in him because I have discovered how little control (read none) all of us have. Or two, abandon the idea of a God who hears our prayers and can intervene to answer them.

Days, weeks, months, and eventually a year passed, during which God eliminated option two. I had just kept praying. I would often express to God that I really don’t know if you (God) can help with this, because there are many more people in this world that need more help than my daughter does, but somewhere along the way, can you do this one thing for my daughter? Again and again, the answer has been yes. I don’t know why, exactly, my prayers have been answered while the prayers of others had clearly not been. That’s part of the mystery. Part of the faith. I don’t have the answers. But for me, one answer had changed.

It was over a year after London came home from the hospital when I was again listening to Coldplay’s “Magic” and thinking about it all–faith, mysterious, confusing faith, love, my daughter, who I know is a miracle, and my little family–when I finally could sing the end of the song and mean it.
After all that we’ve been through
“Still believe in prayer?”
Well yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Of course I do

*Block quote about suffering is from David Brooks’ column in the NY Times, “What Suffering Does.”

A Speech Worth Listening To

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Regardless of your NFL allegiance, or lack of it, I think this speech from Peyton Manning is worth listening to. Of course, Manning touches on his illustrious career in the NFL, but he acknowledges there is a whole new world of possibilities ahead of him and he is excited about it.

Most touching for me, was when Manning recalled the little things that over his 18-year career became the big things. He says that he is and will be teaching his children to enjoy the little things in life with the full knowledge that those things will mean the most to him and them when, decades down the road, he looks back on another career, that of being a father.

Two years into my own career as a father, I know that much to be true.  The moments such as the everyday walk to go get the mail with London, when she holds my hand and is so excited to be walking, to be alive, and to be with me. These are the moments that will mean the most to me when I look back on this career.

Thanks, Peyton.