"Darker Than a Georgia Night With a Heavy Heart"

The Hassells have spent the last week getting back to it. Back to school, back to work, back to medical appointments, back to gymnastics and back to attempting to go to bed at a decent hour. The first week back after a break is always an adjustment for a teacher's family.

Jordan started chemo again yesterday after having some positive results with her recent blood work. Her spirit seems to be in a good place. She is laughing and arguing with me as usual, giving the kids a hard time and shopping at Target. Pretty pedestrian and welcomed here.

Jordan had a routine appointment this week at OHSU. It was super early in the morning so Jordan and her mom stayed in Portland the night before. That left me with the kids for the afternoon/evening. Someone made a beautiful meal for us that I didn't think my children would touch with a ten-foot pole (just to prove me wrong they ate it and loved it the next night). So being the good dad that I am I improvised. The kids and I picked up a pizza, polished off our afternoon routines and had a movie night. Pizza, an Adam Sandler movie (the kids picked) and they still went to bed on time. I know it is only January but I'm expecting my dad of the year award to arrive in the mail any day now.

I was looking forward to a long evening in my green chair with a recently purchased Wilco album and Anne Lamott book. I settled in, spun the record and cracked the book. I read all of one paragraph and barely got through the first verse of Misunderstood before I completely zoned. I came back to reality when the needle finished off the record. I drug myself out of the chair into a silent and empty bedroom. I slid into a cold bed and covered myself with a mountain of pillows and blankets. I basically just gave up on the day. A day that had been great up until that moment. A fun day at work followed by a wonderful evening with my kiddos. I let that final moment rob me.

That happens (a more appropriate phrase might be "something else happens" but my grandmother reads this blog). I have those moments. Or those moments have me. I'm not sure. A day is going great and then BAM. Floored. Sometimes it is an innocent interaction I notice between two people or it is something my kids say in passing. Sometimes it is just my soul catching up with my body that always seems to be busy and in motion.

Waking up the next morning I was kind of still in that moment. I got out of bed as I've done a thousand times and put on my smelly running shoes and snuck out into the dark. Don't tell anyone the kids were still asleep at the house by themselves (dad of the year award revoked?). The run was half habit and half an attempt to put my worn out body back in motion.

Oregon winter mornings can be dark. Especially where we live. There are no street lights here outside of "town" and I don't carry a light or wear any of the appropriate clothing (sorry mom). So it was dark and vast. As I ran along a long straight road all I could hear was my breathing and my shoes hitting the wet gravel covered pavement. It smelled wet and clean and like nothing at all. It is a void that I have become familiar and comfortable in. My description is so poor and doesn't do it justice. If you haven't snuck out into a cold dark morning before the world wakes up there is nothing like it.

As I hit the halfway point in my run I did something really odd for a runner. I stopped. I stood still. I stared up at the black sky and I was just there. For a few moments that was it. Then I got cold and ran home.

As I went through with the rest of my day I realized that what brought on my moment(s) was an absence. Jordan wasn't there. For the first time in a long time, there was a night when we were apart. It wasn't familiar. It was painful. It was real. It was and is too much for me to face. A new cold dark void that I hope like hell I don't ever have to try and be comfortable with.

-Brack