Father’s Day 2009

June 20, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

“I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.” – Harry Truman

Happy Father’s Day – Lukas Rossi

Father’s Day is different for every dad and child out there. Tomorrow it will be celebrated in many ways and I am no different.

I’ve always thought that gifts and cards were unnecessary. I guess that comes from my dad. For him, Father’s Day was golf day. You couldn’t find my dad the mornings of Father’s Day because he was out yucking it up on the golf course at an early hour. It was his way to spend the day. My mother always told me that my father didn’t need a BBQ, a tie , or a card, but just time to enjoy simple pleasures that his own father never got to take part in. As one of 8 children of immigrants, my father didn’t have a tight relationship with his father. as my grandfather was always working and didn’t play favorites with his children (as my dad told me).

It wasn’t til I was old enough to caddie for my dad that he let me join him for Father’s Day. My dad wasn’t cold, but from the first moments he stepped on the course, I knew why he always did this in solitude. This was his way to be by himself. He loved his family, but Father’s Day was his day of peace. Peace withhimself and withhis thoughts. He’d hit a bad shot and chuckle to himself. He’d hit a good putt and laugh nervously as if to say he was just lucky. His golf game was like the way he lived. Quietly straight down the middle with not much power or pizzazz, but lots of finesse and with a great positive perspective. The smile my dad had while he played golf was infectious.

My most memorable Father’s Day might have been 1987 when I was visiting home from NYC and my dad asked me if I wanted to join him. To be invited to be with him on his Father’s Day round at Harding Park Golf Course was great. I had arrived to the point where he wanted to let me be a bigger part of his day. I wished him luck for a Happy Father’s Day and he looked at me and waived it off then hit his shot. In our lifetime I don’t think I ever got to the point where my golf game got better than my dads and I could beat him. I could hit it further than him, but that was it. He was only 5’6″ and 130 lbs. I was bigger than him yet he stilled played a game and lived a life that was hard to mirror.

It was a foggy morning and it was so peaceful. We didn’t talk much but it was still noisy. Across Lake Merced you could hear the US Open at the Olympic Club being played. Crowds would cheer and groan with the shots across the way. The beauty of the US Open golf tournament is that it is always played on Father’s Day weekend. And every year it reminds me of that 1987 golf game with my dad. As we neared the end of the round on the par 3 17th hole I thought I was going to beat my dad for the first time. I hit my ball on the green. It was a lucky shot. The crowd over at the US Open almost cheered at the same time as my shot landed and I recall him telling me that the crowds were rooting for me as he made his practice swings. Then he took his 3-iron and hit a shot I lost in the fog. I don’t know how I lost it in the air. I looked at him and told him I thought it went into the bushes. As I got near the bushes he just sat in the cart and whistled at me to look in the cup. I glanced and he laughed. A hole-in-one on Father’s Day? Are you kidding? He popped a cigar into his mouth and watched me finish the hole and chuckled. He didn’t say anything more, but just put out his hand for me to give him back his golf ball.

He just hit a hole in one with the greatest golfers in the world about 300 yards away on Father’s Day and I was happier than he was. He was at such peace with himself after the round was over. He drank a beer, watched the tournament on the clubhouse TV and didn’t even celebrate. That day I think I understood what Father’s Day really meant for him. It was his Father’s Day for his father and not for him. All the dinners, BBQs, cards and ties were appreciated but never necessary.

Tomorrow will be the same for me. I know my wife has gone out and gotten something. But she knows tomorrow for me is not for me. He’s been gone for 3 years now but I will go back 22 years to that morning with my dad, a memorable one probably more for me than it ever was for my dad. His hole-in-one ball still sits above my desk and remains one of my favorite pieces of memorabilia. When he passed and I took over his desk, I found all of those old ties and cards. The material things were not what he needed. I know my children will want to think of me on Father’s Day, but I hope they will remember their grandfathers as well. They are the men and the generation that the day was intended for, not me.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

That Extra Degree

June 19, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; because there is not EFFORT without error and shortcomings; but he who does actually strive to accomplish the deed, who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who are the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those timid and uncaring souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

1 More Degree of Effort Makes the Difference

Looking at the difference between 211 degrees (hot water) and 212 degrees (steam and power and effective energy), it motivates by urging us to keep going even when things are difficult. One of my favorite comedy routines by Jerry Seinfeld is the one where he talks about the difference between a gold and bronze medal in the 100 meter dash or the 50 meter freestyle. It’s that extra little effort. Some of it is training. Some of it is desire. Its just that little extra that pushes you over the top. One of my favorite books growing up was “The Little Engine that Could. You know the one “where he says “I think I can until he says “I Know I Can”. I was talking with my kids this morning as they watched a show on Earth and global warming (its amazing what they see these days compared to the Mr. Rogers and Electric Company shows I watched at their ages). They asked me about how it was going to affect them when they are my age. I sipped my coffee and tried to tell them to enjoy life but to respect the planet they live on. I didn’t want to alarm them. As I spoke they spoke about how an extra degree in temperature affects plant life, sea life, etc. It was pretty dramatic.

I tried to get them off the subject as I read the sports page. There was a great article about Phil Mickelson and how he is having to fight his emotions as well as to find peace in his life while being on stage at the US Open in NYC while his wife is back in California awaiting breast cancer surgery. It was only a year ago that I was at a conference in Boston waiting while my wife was also back in California awaiting what likely is the same surgery the Mickelson’s will be dealing with. While there is nothing they can do but wait, they have to try and live their lives as normally as they can for their kids and their sanity. In a way, going off to play in a golf tournament is probably a good lesson for their children abou how life goes on and to show them that you have to live before you paralyze yourself. Having lived that wait I can only imagine what they are going through as they don’t have the privacy that many people have. I can see Phil lining up a big putt only to see women in pink hats and pink ribbons following him in the gallery. I could never have done that at work! In the article, Phil Mickelson says that he is giving his EVERYTHING this week. I sure hope he just gives it that extra degree, and creates the feel good story of the year, but his odds are long and only because he is human. Here is the article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/18/SPDP189376.DTL

Alas Phil’s story was delayed today because of rains in the East.

Speaking of Earth, heat and rain, I should probably finish and talk about Wind. Tonight I inched toward the 500 mile mark in runnning for the year. Today had been a sunny day but as it goes in San Francisco, the ocean breezes took their place and by the time I ran tonight, it was pretty blustery. I took off into the wind as I ran a mile and a half towards the ocean. The cool breeze felt good against my sunburn I picked up this weekend. Once I reached the beach I turned and went three miles halfway back across the City with a stiff breeze pushing at my back. They say the first and last miles are always the hardest parts of a run, but when I turned back into the ocean breezed for my final mile home, my pace picked up again.

I was interested to see my stats once I uploaded my run data from my Nike ipod. And there it was. My runs into the wind tonight were faster than my speed with the wind. It appears that with Wind resistence to fight, I found that I gave it that extra degree to knife through it. Maybe the path of least resistence isn’t the best one. We all need motivation. And sometimes a little hurdle or an obstacle can create the opportunity to focus and be the best we can be. When the wind was at my back, I was simply coasting.

Maybe that is the lesson for the day. Don’t avoid your obstacles and fears, but rather use them to propel you to new heights.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

From Start to Finish

June 14, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 1 Comment

“Sometimes I’ll be driving alone and suddenly I’ll be crying” – Phil Mickelson, PGA Tour pro, when talking about his Wife’s Cancer

Amy Mickelson, wife of Phil Mickelson, disagnosed w/ Breast Cancer

Those words by Phil Mickelson this week reminded me of where I was almost a year ago. Trying to be strong for his wife, he finds himself alone, his emotions pour out. He and his wife are in that emotional purgatory as they wait for her surgery at the beginning of July and they remove the tumor. The waiting is just painful and getting back to golf for 4-5 days will definitely give him some normalcy again.

I look back on how we handled that waiting and remember how my wife and I just both worked up until the day before the surgery preparing ourselves for the long road ahead. It got our minds to remind us of what we have and what we needed to get back to. Our finish line was back to beinng normal and keeping our minds clear of the dangers thatwere ahead of us. It is like starting over. A new race. A new trip. A new beginning.

In Amby Burfoot’s (winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon) ” The Runner’s Guide to the Meaning of Life”, he talks about the beginning of every race. The nervousness of what lies ahead and not knowing”. I think that the more scary the possible outcome, the longer the race might seem. The thought of battling cancer is like running many marathons. It isn’t the distance but rather the time to cover that distance. Every run I run has those first miles where I ask myself what I am doing and how far I think I can go tonight. They are the hardest miles and take twice as long as the rest, but they are the most fulfilling, the most thought-provoking and the most calming. I suspect that Phil Mickelson will look back on these days as a husband and realize what is important to him and if those things were already important, it will ground him even more.

New beginnings are like that, both rewarding and frightening. because of fear, people tend to shy away. We hesistate or never take steps that they should. We procrastinate and worry about all the things that might go wrong. We get paralyzed and think of all the bad things and fail to possibly see the brighter lights. Every night I run I worry about my aching back, my sore feet, that little bump on the side of my hip, my controlled asthma and worry, but less than ever because each night I know a new lesson will come to light. Sometimes it is new or sometimes it is a reminder of lessons past.

It is like the many sayings. You have to pay to play. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Unless you understand your barriers and where you come from, the end line will never seem so long ago, and you will better respect and comprehend the distance you have covered. The same goes for finishing what you start. Many times we never look back if we don’t finish or give everything we’ve got. The hard work, the stamina, the focus and the will to succeed are never realized and respected unless we finish what we started.

It seems like a small lesson and one we should all know but we face it in our every day lives. Learning to finish things off is so hard to do if you don’t learn to do it from an early age. Teaching my kids is the same thing. Although right now it isn’t about fear or fear of failure, it is about focus, its about learning to complete things.

Each summer my parents used to have a plan to teach us things we were either going to learn in the coming year at school so that we could get ahead, or such things that you couldn’t teach in a classroom. Life lessons my dad would call them. Today I call it experiencial learning. If we were going to Mexico, my father would mark things around the house with Spanish words to teach us how to speak basic words. This summer our lesson for our children is about finishing. We have a list of things our children have started and now we are going to finish. We are also reading them stories and showing movies about completing your journey. Some of them are silly movies like “Field of Dreams”. Others are more inspirational like Chariots of Fire and the Rookie.

Speaking of finishing, and starting. I need to end this post and get started on my Sunday.

Route 53 - Life is A Highway, Travels: The Route 53

The Bonding Journey – Travels with Herbie

June 10, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

“Contrary to popular belief, in this day and age it is easier than you think to escape and get away from it all” – Anonymous

I’ve often used this blog to talk about the journey of life. Well this weekend we took a real journey with real paths and real lessons to help a real relationship. There was nothing really wrong with the relationship with my daughter. It just wasn’t as warm as I would have liked it to be. We always talk about “Momma’s Boys” and “Daddy’s Little Girl”. My wife and son definitely have the former but my daughter and I don’t quite have the latter. So we took the opportunity of a Father-Daughter camping retreat with her classmates to a natural preserve near Carmel, CA. Driving south from San Francisco to the Carmel Valley takes an hour and 45 minutes. Our final destination although only 20 miles further through the Santa Lucia Preserve took an additional hour. The winding climb up the mountain was a Tour de France paradise for cyclists. We encounter many through the winding road barely wide enough for 2 cars. Fortunately Herbie (see above) was small enough to deal with the winding switch backs up Robinson Canyon Road.

As we left the Carmel Valley, my cell phone(s) went dead. I was now “going dark”. No messages from my wife. It was just me and my seven year old daughter. It was our time to be together and a chance to develop more of that dad and daughter bond. Unfortunately my daughter is not like her older brother. She’s quiet and loves to sleep in the car. The drive was mostly in silence other than my DVD player so it gave me a time to get away from it all. No online media, no clocks, no televisions.

Herbie overlooks the Carmell Valley — Herbie overlooks the Carmel Valley

The deeper we went into the preserve, the narrower the roads became. I was suddenly overcome by how easy it was to get away and leave the world behind.

Just two hours away from one of the major cities in the U.S. I was now dodging chipmunks, squirrels and snakes. I often stopped in the middle of this deserted road for several minutes waiting for another car to come by to confirm the directions, but no cars came along so I ventured forth wondering if I’d ever find the other fathers and their daughters. My daughter woke up from her nap and asked if we were lost. I kidded her that when we are in “Herbie” we are never lost. Part of this trip was to help our daughter realize that her father is equally a parent that she can rely upon.

Our relationship is fine by most people’s standards but we don’t spend enough time together to really bond like a father and his son who play golf. She is daddy’s little girl but hanging alone with her dad is tough for her, I can tell. She has often indicated to me how uncomfortable she is driving with me in Herbie.

This time she screamed with joy and giggled as we rushed up and down over the hills as Herbie took her for a ride until we reached the Northern edge of the Los Padres National Forest. I’ve always driven my car just to show my kids a fun side to growing up as well as to act a symbol that life is not full of material things such as expensive cars and other luxury items. As I mentioned, my daughter is slightly shy and my goal of this trip was to get her out of her shell and to try to be more adventurous and show her the road less traveled. With her mother’s battle with cancer in the past year, she has shown some hesitancy and cautiousness in life and I wanted to make sure she understood that there are risks in life that you can take without getting hurt. Literally, Herbie and I were taking her on a new adventure to show another side of her father other than the working dad. We finally arrived and pitched the tent and took a look around. Some of the girls who arrived earlier were running around screaming. I finally convinced her to put on her bathing suit and got her to join in a class hike.

That jump set the tone for the rest of our weekend as she got brave enough to go down the 200 foot waterslide that she had at first refused to try and later she fished frogs out of the pool with their sliminess in her hands for me to touch. That night in the tent we talked and laughed. For a dad, there is nothing that makes a dad’s heart beat more proudly than to hear his little girl laugh. A close second is when your daughter shows you that she feels comfortable and safe when you are around them. Usually every night I give my daughter a kiss on the cheek as I tuck her into bed. That night out in the valley my daughter gave me the most special hug I’ve ever had. She made me promise that we’d do this again next year. I told her that as long as she had fun and we discovered new things together, we could do this forever. I know this sounds like a simple trip and a simple lesson, but that is what life is all about. Small yet adventurous journeys.

The hike was pretty much a successful mission. We hiked a very treacherous path to a waterfall which was freezing cold. I held her hand along the trail which had areas of 100 foot drops and while she was very cautious at first, she eventually started displaying a sense of assuredness with her footing. Still it was good to get some insight into her personality. She wasn’t too adventurous and always exhibited a sense of caution (this is a good note for 10 years from now). At the waterfall she looked at me when one of the other dads jumped off the top. “Should I do it?” I asked her. She looked at me as if I was kidding and that there was no way her daddy would jump 30 feet down into freezing water. This was my chance. When I ripped off my shirt she wrinkled her face as if to say, “You can’t fool me. I’m your daughter and I know you’ll never do it.” As all the little girls cheered for me to jump I could see me daughter with her hands wanting to cover her eyes. The jump was more invigorating than you could imagine. Freezing cold, if I had any circulatory issues, my body is fine now! As I swam across to the rocks where she stood I could see her clapping and cheering with a hug smile. Her daddy was not scared and was pretty brave and very cold. I’m sure the water in Beijing must have been this cold because I broke any records that Michael Phelps had established at the Olympic Games. Later on, once back from the nature hike, I saw my daughter sitting around the outdoor whirlpool with some of the other girls and talking about the “cool dads”. She had a bright smile when one of the girls said I was cool because I jumped off the waterfall. When we eventually returned home the first thing she would tell my wife (although I told her not to) was about dad’s “crazy jump” off a waterfall.

: The Recreation Area

Should you want to visit, there are many semi-private grounds in the preserve. Here is the map to get there if you want to take a drive to one of the more peaceful and beautiful places in Northern California. If you are visiting the famous Carmel by the Sea, the Monterey Bay Aquarium or famed Pebble Beach, the preserve is right there.

In the end though for me, it was just what my daughter and I needed. I needed to find a daughter who’s love didn’t seem so stiff and awkward. She needed to see a dad who was more fun and able to help her when her mother was not around. Seeing her seek out my hand on the hike along our treacherous hike warmed my heart, but at the same time seeing no worry on her face as she held my hand while danger hung below us was a great metaphor for life with my little girl. I smiled knowing “Daddy’s Little Girl” really did need her dad and we had a weekend that would carry us for a long time.

The drive home was still quiet but there was a different vibe as Herbie returned us safely from our little detour in life. A detour that offered a more scenic route for a few days and created a great new rhythm to a relationship between a father and his “daddy’s little girl”.

Route 53 - Life is A Highway

I know you all hate this quote, but….

June 5, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 1 Comment

“Life is Like a Box of Chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Forrest Gump

Life Lesson: Just go out and enjoy yourself. No need to worry about the cards that you area going to be dealt. You can’t change ides but moreso

This week my personal comfort of where I am in the stages of life was challenged. I reacted the way all people do. We all do it. We can’t help it. When surrounded by tragedy and tales of sadness that make you think, our body and mind react in a self-defense mode.. Let’s face it. When we all heard about the Air France flight, we thought about whether we’d want to fly that same route that plane took and how we’d be if we knew someone on that plane.

Even closer to home, a little 7-year-old girl who is a friend of my daughter found out that she has a brain tumor and will be undergoing surgery to have it removed. The proximity of our relationship to the girl has us and our daughter’s classmates all feeling terribly sad for this young girl and her family. I do have to admit that the thoguht ran through my head – “What if that were my own daughter?” And of course I thanked someone up there that it was not my little girl. Guilty?! Yes…we all do it. We worry and pray for those struck with a curveball that life has tossed. And we hope that curveball doesn’t get thrown at us .

I remember going to my uncle’s funeral when I was 16. I cried looking at him in his casket. Yes, he was one of my favorite uncles, but when I saw him and because he resembled my own dad, it just hit me how much I loved my own dad and thankful I was that my dad was still there. Years later, when my dad did pass, my friends came to console me and I looked at my best friend who had lost his father a decade before me. I looked and asked him how I’d do without my dad. I know we are grown me but we still need our dads. He told me you never get over the loss of a good dad. I knew he wasn’t sitting there at the funeral saying, “I’m glad it wasn’t my dad” since he had already lost his dad. In fact he told me that my own dad’s funeral reminded him of his own dad’s death and then he lost it.

When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, the moms in our kid’s school were great and really rallied around our family. Once again I know it was proximity. Proximity of being a mom with young children. With one in 8 women getting breast cancer, these moms knew my wife might have been the first, but they knew the chances were high that other moms would get it and that they could be next. They understood our troubles, but they also knew this was a situation that could hit them just as easily.

Is it okay to feel this way? Of course it is. It is human nature. This weekend is the funeral of a friend of the family. The eldest daughter asked me for some advice given that I was an expert and had been through the same thing. I told her it was not the same. Every night for 5 months I had read my friend’s bedside account of her mother’s poor health on www.caringbridge.com until she passed. We can only learn from our own experiences and from those around us. We are dealt many cards in life and it is okay to put ourselves in those situations and wonder “What if?”. What if that were me? What if that were my daughter or son? What if my daughter had gotten cancer like that little girl http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/19/earlyshow/health/main5024777.shtml?

Life is definitely like a box of chocolates that way.

Ah but life isn’t always filled with the coconut filled or cherry filled chocolates. Sometimes you do get the nuts or caramels that you prefer and others start to follow because they wonder, “what if I had the nuts and caramels” How happy would they be to be like me? In the end we should all hope that we get the chocolates we want and when we don’t we should observe what we would, could or should do

Route 53 - Life is A Highway, Travels: The Route 53

The Luxe Hotel – Sunset Blvd.

June 3, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

The Luxe on Sunset is a luxury hotel located at the corner of the 405 and Sunset Blvd at the edge of Beverly Hills. Do not be confused as there also is a Luxe Hotel Beverly Hills located on Rodeo Dr. In fact there are several Luxe Hotels in Los Angeles.

11461 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90049 USA
800-468-3541

www.luxehotelsunsetblvd.com

Cost:$$

Hotel Decor: 89 Typical of a Los Angeles hotel, The Luxe has great outdoor lounging areas . You feel like you are in your own private garden eventhough you are right next to a highway. The hotel is older but has very modern decor in the rooms although nothing spectacular.

Hotel Amenities: 88 The rooms are spacious and quiet. There are two levels and the back upper level is probably the quieter although older level. The rooms are also closer to the pool. The resort has a great spa thatmany locals seem to use.

Neighborhood Scene: 91 As you can see in the pool photo, the hotel is situated below and near the Getty museum. nothing is walkable and taxis are not easy to find. You are a 10-15 minute drive from Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood and UCLA. Shopping on trendy Rodeo and Richardson are both very near.

Miscellaneous: The closest airport is Burbank and although closer, renting a car is probably the best thing.

Overall Wow Factor: 89 When I was there, President George W. Bush was staying in the main wing of the hotel. As I waited around the lobby bar in the morning, Justin Timberlake walked through the hotel lobby as did Tom Brady. There seemed to be plenty of classic roadster cars being pulled up to the valet one after another. There wasn’t a single car in that lot under $45K-$50K . The hotel is not flashy, but definitely had the coolness factor which showed that the hotel had all the class in the world with any of the pomp and circumstance. This was old school Hollywood and not the Nouveau Hollywood as the conceierge told me.

: The Room

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

The Spring Fix and Clean

May 29, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

April is a promise that May is bound to keep. ~Hal Borland

The other day I received a nice thank your from the representatives of Phil & Amy Mickelson’s Foundation in response to my letter about dealing with breast cancer in a family with young children. It really did put a little spring in my step.

I was spurred to write that note to one of my favorite golfers when I read about the hard time that he was having dealing with the thought that his wife was suffering at home and he was in a sport where he was traveling away from his family. He was tormented and reacting on instinct. I just thought he needed to know about some of the resources available to husbands of breast cancer sufferers and I’m glad I reached out.

Phil is one of those husbands who give men a good name. When it comes to breast cancer, let’s face it, men just have a rotten name. It isn’t that they don’t deserve it. Some men have just not “done the right thing” by not being understanding, leaving their wives at a hard time, or just running from it al . And those few men have made it hard for men to be understood. The emotions flow and rage enters the picture. I totally understand and empathize with these women and also with their husbands at the same time. I guess that is because I know where both sides are coming from. These women think their husbands might be insensitive or not understanding, but there really is some “reasoning” for some of the behavior.

Recently I got into a discussion with some women online after a woman’s husband was insensitive. At first I read about it and thought, “here we go again, another man ruining the name of husband”. Then I said to myself…wait, I’m not much better. That could very well have been my own wife complaining about me.

Cancer is a tough ordeal. For a man who has to watch his wife suffer with breast cancer, there is no greater feeling of helplessness. We’re men. We like to fix things and there is nothing more that we want to fix is the broken pieces of the only woman in our lives that means more to us than our own mother. For me, the drains, the blood and the visits to the doctors (things I was not comfortable with) were just part of the healing process. Most men don’t want to talk about their fears and especially with their own wives who don’t need to hear from their husband about how scared they are when right now they might need a rock or a sounding board and not a whimpering husband. Heck, they’ve got cancer, not us! When we aren’t that rock or sounding board though, then we get that bad rep. Quite frankly I think my wife got tired of all that smothering. She didn’t want to be thought of as sick and my fawning all over her just reminded her of her illness.

The monthly doctor appointments are continuing shots and side effects of her cancer trial drugs have become a normal part of life that get acknowledged quickly before we go to bed at night.

“How did it go?”

“Okay, I only waited for 45 minutes. The shot was easier this time.”

“Great. Good night.’

It really has become casual in conversation because of her desire to ease my burden and not have my attention focused on her. Similarly I have to pay extra special attention to let her know that I do know she isn’t out of the woods. She needs to know that if she wants that attention, I will give it to her.

So back to the discussion, the husband was asked by a wife about what her thought of her recent construction. The husband was pretty dismissive and understandably the wife was a bit upset. At first I wanted to jump on that bandwagon of saying what a jerk the husband was. Now I love my wife and “not just her breasts”. They has always been an asset for her before cancer and she’s been always conscientious about their appearance, but I do find myself trying to remind her that I don’t mind her focusing on them health-wise, but it is heremotional well-being that I care about more. So in my case when asked about her scars and if the neckline on her dress is too low and her scars show, I do want to tell her she looks beautiful, but a woman knows her husband and what he feels just by looking in his eyes. She knows that I know they look and feel different. A woman after reconstruction knows that a husband might not look at her bare breasts the same way (better or worse in appearance), but I know for me it was her eyes, her mind, and other parts of her which remained untouched…or maybe untouched by human hands but they are still the same ones that were part of her when we got married. I will at some point look at her reconstruction as part of her and without hesitation.

Just like your scars, it takes time to heal and feel comfortable again for you to discuss them with your husband. Actually, while I don’t mind discussing with my wife about the cancer, I just don’t want her to focus on the appearance of her new breasts. I do want her to be happy with them, but I don’t want to obsess about them. My wife would rather me tell her how beautiful she looks in her new dress without prompting than to have a 20 minute discussion on if her scars are fading, if I see rippling, or other imperfections. I’ve had those discussions and while productive, the conversation did not seem natural (no pun intended).

The reconstruction part of cancer recovery really does belong in the domain of the woman. I didn’t want to look like one of those husbands who “shaped his wife’s looks”. In the end I took my wife “for better or for worse”. My wife chose her option and I am happy with it as long as she is happy with it. As I look at it, as husbands we have no choice in what your original breasts looked like, we have no choice in marrying women who were stricken with breast cancer, and we should not be a major contributor in deciding what your new body should look like. What we do have a choice in is being sensitive to our wife’s emotional feelings and we do have a choice to love them unconditionally.

I mentioned that human hands did not touch my wife’s eyes, mind and spirit, but they have changed through cancer too. She is more proud and confident of where she is because of what she has been through. I find her strength to be the biggest turn on. It makes her more beautiful than ever.

Last weekend was the unofficialbeginning of Summer with MemorialDay and we took that time for the whole family to clean the house and continue with our post-cancer journey. We threw out the old cancer information pamphlets, the left over get well cards, the sample drain pump and the tons of bedside reading material that was accumulated. We’re all moving on. We’re cleaning those cupboards. We’re fixing our lives and coming on stronger than ever.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Thinking in Rare Air

May 21, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 3 Comments

: Sunset @ 30,000 feet

More thoughts from 30,000 feet. Rare air makes you think. It makes you appreciate. It helps you to understand.

I write these thoughts from the air somewhere along the Pacific Coast after having spent a beautiful day in Los Angeles on business. The weather there is always debon “air” as Herb Caen once wrote I think. There was just enough of a breeze to keep the smog at bay. I always feel a bit younger when traveling down there on business maybe because I am hanging out in the hip area of LA in Hollywood. At the same time I find myself feeling quite antiquated for not recognizing the newest starlet as she just pranced by me in front of Le Petit Four…”that was LC, don’t you know?”. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have recognized her.

The past week has been the fun part of my job at a music conference where we talked about the ever changing landscape of the music industry and listened to fantastic music of yet to be discovered artists such as Meiko and Matt Morris (@mattmorrisfeed). I’m probably a relative novice in the world of music, but in terms of talking about the industry, its preservation, and its future, it is a great topic. Working in an industry that is in turmoil keeps your job interesting much like my regular life.

The future has been on my mind quite a bit. Why? Because I find it really great to be optimistic about things and the future is something you can dictate yourself. For example, my wife has been lamenting about not having been to Hawaii in a few years. So rather than worrying about it, we booked flights for 9 months from now to our favorite hotel. Sure lots will happen between now and then, but I sure can’t wait for Spring Break 2010. We aren’t even sure yet what we are doing this summer or this holiday season. The message though is that my wife was thinking about doing something fun and going to somplace that made her happy and I was more than happy to want to see that happen.

Its always been a great part of my relationship with my wife that I treasure. I like to dream and my wife likes to laugh at me as if I were the little kids who is telling her that when I grow up that I want to be “an astronaut and meet aliens” (that’s what I told my mother when I was 9). That was about 4 months before I met Farrah Fawcett’s manager and I decided that I wanted to grow up to be a manager of a beautiful starlet and earn 10% of everything she made. I know my wife thinks I’m nuts sometimes when I show her photos of beautiful places and say “we’re going there”.

My wife has always been that rock, that voice of reason. The one who tells me that we should think before we act and to wait a few days and think about it first. I’ve always been the one to do quick analytics and go with my gut instinct based upon those calculations. I believe that this battle with cancer has made her not only appreciate me more, but the attitude of not waiting. When I used to ask her thoughts, she used to say, “I don’t know” or “what does it matter?” as if these were just my musings for me and not for her. Now she realizes they are for all of us. My wife has been right to analyze things for sure, but I think when it comes to matters of the heart and mind, sometimes it is good to go with your instincts.

Most of all I think we are all beginning to learn how to live “with” cancer and not let cancer lead our lives. This morning I saw the article about golfer Phil Mickelson’s wife having breast cancer. My children saw it as well and while I thought to myself that it’s always interesting how nobody really seems to pay attention about it until a celebrity is afflicted : Christina Applegate, Lance Armstrong, Patrick Sayze, Steve Jobs, etc., my son looked at the article and said, “She’ll be okay, right? They have kids our ages. Sounds like what mom had. I guess Tiger is going to win a lot of money while Phil is out.” That statement hit me hard, not by the words, but by his casualness. First it showed me that my son hadn’t found the experience of the last 9 months to be all that traumatic, second that he seemed to think of cancer as something that yoursurvive and not something that kills, and last that he felt if a celebrity and their family had cancer, it must be something somewhat normal. I spent all day thinking about whether all of those outcomes were good. I don’t want my son to be terrified and I do want him to erealize this can hit anyone and I am happy that he wasn’t faced with the emotional issues.

My thoughts do go out to Phil and his wife Amy as well as all those who are suffering from breast cancer right now. I am happy to be exiting that long dark tunnel with my wife’s hand in mine and really look forward to seeing that daylight at the end. Sometimes that daylight still looks like 4 years away, but at least its bright and we have a lot of good hopes ahead.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Midlife Re-birth: 8 months post-surgery

May 13, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 2 Comments

We don’t understand life any better at forty than at twenty, but we know it and admit it. – Jules Renard

This weekend marked 8 months post-surgery for my wife. She has since had reconstruction, a follow up surgery, 6 months of shots,6 months of a test bisphosphonate, and Tamoxifen. She has finally started to take another drug to lessen the effects of her side-effects of the drugs. I really don’t know how she does it. All these distractions and she continues her duties as class parent, team mom, family glue, top chef, businesswoman, and loving wife. It’s all become par for the course. Just yesterday she sent me a text at work to tell me that she had another follow-up procedure scheduled for the end of the summer. It just seems like such a casual thing now for her to write me and say that she is going to have more surgery, but this is just a stage in our life, not a WAY of life. We are going to move past this chapter.

In truth as we’ve come to realize her skin-sparing mastectomy is still a relatively new thing in the world of breast cancer surgery. While it does save your skin and is less traumatic for the survivor than we ever imagined, there is still quite a bit different from the traditional “Hollywood boob job”. Skin-sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction has become popular with patients because, compared with delayed reconstruction, it improves the cosmetic result, reduces cost and anesthetic risk, and in one sitting completes most of the surgical treatment that the patient will ever require for treatment of her breast cancer. Provided that the breast skin is not involved with or close to the tumor, physicians prefer to perform the mastectomy with optional removal of the nipple-areolar complex (total skin sparing) and the tumor biopsy scar. The mastectomy is otherwise the same as a standard modified radical mastectomy with removal of all breast tissue and an axillary node dissection. The part that is difficult for most patients is that so much tissue is removed that the breast becomea basically a large water balloon that holds a big bag of silicone, saline or whatever. Because the skin is now so much thinner, it is hard to prevent wrinkling and rippling. With so little tissue left, the breast can look a little misshapen at times. That said, the results do look pretty good and like life small adjust ments will be needed. Yes, this is the procedure that you hear for celebrities like Christina Applegate.

I know many women don’t want to talk about this too publicly. I mean, how can you complain when you think about the alternatives? These women are so thankful yet feel so close to what they can see is the final visual end to their suffering. All of this though is a change. A change from what past generations had. Not only was life extended but the quality of that life has been improved.

It is with that frame of mind while sick the past couple of weeks it come to my mind that suddenly we were so accepting of all these new changes in our life. We’ve reached that mid point in our life. They talk about midlife and the word crisis is always used to describe it. I don’t think so. Sure we’ve come across some bumps in the road. I told my wife that rather than a mid-life crisis, this is half-time for us. In the world of sports, this is the time to make adjustments and a time to assess where we are, where we’ve come from and where we want to go.

Such is mid-life for us I guess. After taking 10 days off from running because of a nagging cold I found my rested body was now better suited to tackle my nightly runs again. I told my wife how my body was responding and she reminded me I’m not getting any younger although I may feel young. Either way, the rest gave me renewed energy and a new energy and perspective that allowed me to set new personal bests three days in a row. The 10 days of mental relief reminded me of how lucky we are and how blessed our life is. It isn’t about fate or faith, but about the sense of being.

We took our time to plan that second half, revise our targets and think about how we want to live our life. It is not about settling. It is about making choices and pursuing what we believe to be important to both of us. The one thing we agreed upon is that this is a shared goal and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

A Very Special Mother’s Day

May 10, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. ~Honoré de Balzac

Today is obviously a more special Mother’s Day than any other for me. Even though I am so happy that I get to celebrate Mother’s Day with my own mother, I am even more grateful that my children get to spend it this year with their mother and for many years to come. Although they probably didn’t the magnitude of how special it was and how we were staring straight into the possibility that this Mother’s Day could have been one without a mom or one with a bit more urgency than we had today, it was not lost on me.

As we got up at 6 am this morning to get breakfast and flowers while their mother slept in, it was nice to spend some time with the kids and ask them what they appreciated about their mother. Here is a lst from a 7 and a 9 year old in no particular order:

She’s a good cook
She smells nice
She drives us wherever we want to go
She plays games with us
She let’s us have play dates
She’s smart
She’s nice
She’s pretty
She let’s me paint my toenails (daughter)
She helps us with our homework
She kisses us and tucks us in for bed

They didn’t say it directly, but I knew what they were thinking. They said that it would be sad though for some schoolmates who did lose their mother to breast cancer this year. After they said that, there was silence in the car and when we got back home they each made an additional card for their mother before she woke up. The hugs around the breakfast table seemed more meaningful and sincere that the daily ones and for that I am so appreciative of the moments we still have together.

Last night we had a rare chance for one of our date nights. Dinner and a movie seems so simple but I can’t remember the last time we held hands all movie long. Dinner was filled with pleasant conversation especially over the relief that our son had played a decent baseball game. She had hugged our son, wished him good luck and accidentally told him to get some hits for mommy before his Little League game. As soon as she said that she looked at me with the horror of putting pressure on her son. Fortunately he came through and had a couple of hits on his best day ever in baseball. He was so excited to come home and tell his mother that he got two hits. The smile on his dirt covered face not only made her laugh but was a big relief. Some day he’ll probably tell us it was no big deal, but we were hoping he wouldn’t put any pressure on himself.

Tonight we’ll spend part of another Mother’s Day with my mother. Although the appreciation of still spending that extra time with her had somewhat dissipated each year beyond her battle with cancer, this year it has been renewed. Since my father’s passing she has visibly taken on much of his persona as well. She’s adopted his adventuresome attitude and more than anything become not just a loving mother that she already was, but a thoughtful icon for me and my siblings to come to in times when we aren’t quite sure about what is right or wrong and reminds us of what our father would want us to do. I can see in her latter years that she more than anything wants her children to spend more time together and makes a strong effort to make that happen on a daily basis.

Mother’s Day has become more than that Hallmark Holiday. It is also now a call to awareness to the plight of mothers and their battle with Breast Cancer. I am glad that even baseball has really taken the time to appreciate mothers and use Mother’s Day to bring awareness to Breast Cancer Research. Watching major league baseball players use pink bats and wear pink wristbands tells you that it isn’t just the days of playing catch between a father and son that forms the foundation of future baseball players but also those mothers who drive their sons and daughters from field to field three days a week.

While my wife and daughter celebrated with a spa day, I took my son to play 9 holes of golf and were paired up with a 30ish son and his dad. You never know why people are out at a golf course on Mother’s Day without their moms on Mother’s Day. The two men played in silence, but idle chit chat revelaed that they were native San Franciscans and were all aums of the same high school. As it turns out they had recently lost their mom/wife to breast cancer. It was a tough day for them and they were honoring her memory on this day. My son did not hear the conversation, but it really cast more light on the specialness of the day.

I smile as I look back at this entry because all I’d want for Father’s Day is a nice round of golf myself ….. At the same time, I want to say how much I appreciate all those moms out there for how much they do for their children whther they are 4 or 40. And for those who have lost their moms or have moms or relatives who are sick, please enjoy what you have and savor it.