where my family becomes a “hallmark hall of fame presentation”

Honestly, we are grossing me out a little bit. Can I say that?

I mean, we are now officially precious and I don’t know how to deal with it now that I’m part of The Precious Family. You know how you envision certain things playing out in your life? You think things like, “I will be a teacher.” “I will be a doctor.” “I will be an Olympic curler.” Stuff like that, right? Well, you know, I have to tell you that I have never once thought to myself “I will become precious.” Nope. Not once. I never ever saw that as my destiny. But it’s sneaking up on me, worming its way into my blood like a virus. I’m taking echinacea to build up my immunity, but it ain’t helping.

Now this current precious trend is not coming from my parents. No, they’re not demonstrative AT ALL. My mom is never precious and my dad is mostly inadvertently precious. It’s these damn precious kids tugging at your heart strings and making you cry and making you think you’re living in The Sound of Music and maudlin crap like that. I mean, one thing we all know about me is that I am NOT precious. We know this, right? I am a crankypants. I AM A CRANKYPANTS AND I WEAR MY CRANKYPANTS BADGE WITH PRIDE!!

But now, sheesh. I’m living in a Strawberry Shortcake world and it’s precious and it’s making me confused about my identity, okay? If I become precious, I don’t know what I’ll DO.

So coming up next: “The Precious Family — a Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation.”

Do sit down.

~ A few days before BIL’s surgery, my sister heard Elder Nephew on the phone, the tail end of his conversation. He was going out of town on a pre-planned church trip, so he wasn’t going to be home for his dad’s surgery.

“Who was that?” My sister asked when he hung up.

“Well, I was calling the church.”

“You were?”

“Well, yeah.”

“What for?”

“I told them I was going to be out of town, so I needed the deacons to come check on my family.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah. I told them I won’t be here to take care of my family, and that’s what deacons are supposed to do, right?”

You’re right, kid, but damn. Kleenex to Room 212, STAT!!

~ Piper wrote her dad a pre-surgery note about how much she loves him. She drew a sad bunny face.

~ At one point post-surgery, I came home to check on Younger Nephew, the only kid home. Sister said, “Yeah. Please make sure he’s alive.” I told him about his dad — in a roundabout, as-needed way. Then I said, “You know, it might be nice if you wrote your dad a note or something.” Again, he’s monosyllabic these days. He talks to me because we’ve always had a ruthlessly teasing relationship on both sides and that continues apace, but emotional stuff …. uhm, no. Not so much right now.

He responded with a noncommittal shrug and I just figured he wouldn’t do it — that it was too much for him or something. A while later, though, as I was about to head back to the hospital, he said, “Here, Aunt Tracey. Take him this Spider Man bobble head doll.”

I looked at him, looked down at the bobble head doll now in my hands, and furrowed my brow in confusion.

“Well, when I was in the hospital for my tonsils when I was 4, he brought me a Spider Man doll because I was really scared.” He paused for a second, seemed embarrassed. “Well, I just want him to have this.”

Ow, my eyes hurt. It has to be the red eye of Sauron again, right?

Then he handed me a folded piece of paper with a rather long note on it. I promised him I wouldn’t read it and he didn’t believe me even though I didn’t read it. I really didn’t. Of course, my sister read it aloud to her husband at the hospital, so I heard the whole durned thing. (Sorry, kid, but I DID keep my promise.) He relayed the Spider Man story to his dad and told him how much he loved him and how proud he was that he was his dad and how Spider Man would watch out for him.

Again with the stinging in the eyes. Dark side of the moon, my lily white bottom.

~ Elder Nephew was given a Mac Book for high school graduation. Since he was going to be out of town for his dad’s surgery, he used it to record himself singing and playing a song for a pre-surgery DVD for his dad. My BIL watched it alone first and then showed it to my sister, Younger Nephew, and me the night before surgery. We gathered at the kitchen table all hunched around BIL’s laptop and watched it.

I’m telling you, we are officially precious and I’m at my wit’s end about it. Seriously.

Elder Nephew sang the song “Life of a Salesman” by Yellowcard for his dad. It’s a kind of punk rock song thanking a dad for being a good dad. It ends with the line, “Thank you for my life, Dad.”

So Elder Nephew sang the song on his video, a little slower than the original, and the screen faded to black for a few seconds. Then a graphic came up that read “Thank you for my life, Dad.”

A few more seconds of black, then my sister’s voice from years ago, just her voice saying, “Well, J, right now, you like nothing better than imitating your daddy. You copy the way he holds his spoon and fork and you like to eat like him, too. You try to do everything the same as he does.”

You see, since her kids were little, my sister has made regular audio recordings of their lives, what they’re like at a given age, what they like to do, funny things they’ve done or said. She’s saved them all and she gave Elder Nephew his mini cassettes for his graduation. Obviously, he’d listened to them.

My sister’s voice continued, just her voice from the black screen:

“You know, J, you’re so lucky to have a daddy like you do. He plays with you all the time. He’s funny and loves to be with you and talk to you more than anything. He just loves you so much. You are everything to him.”

And at that, my sister, who has not once cried since the diagnosis came down, dropped her head to the table and burst into sobs. Then I burst into sobs. Then my brother-in-law burst into sobs. Younger Nephew, standing at the kitchen counter right then, watched as his mom and his dad and his aunt burst into these massive Hallmark sobs and, well, I’m sure he thought for a second that we were all nutso insane, but suddenly he just jumped across that room and grabbed his mom from behind in a huge bear hug. The room was still for a very long time, the only sound the sound of sniffles. I held onto BIL. Younger Nephew held onto his mother.

And that’s all we did. That’s all we did.

See? What did I tell you?

A “Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation.”

I am beside myself about it.

Here is a video of the song EN sang. Lyrics below. I will always love this song now, but, frankly, I do worry that it will be part of my insidious transformation from crankypants to preciouspants.

What’s a dad for dad?
Tell me why I’m here dad
Whisper in my ear that I’m growing up to be a better man, dad
Everything is fine dad
Proud that you are mine dad
Cause I know I’m growing up to be a better man

Father I will always be
That same boy that stood by the sea
And watched you tower over me
Now I’m older I wanna be the same as you

What’s a dad for dad?
Taught me how to stand, dad
Took me by the hand and you showed me how to be a bigger man, dad
Listen when you talk, dad
Follow where you walk, dad
And you know that I will always do the best I can
I can

When I am a dad, dad ~(when i am a dad, dad)~
I’m gonna be a good dad ~(i’m gonna be a good dad)~
Did the best you could, dad ~(did the best you could, dad)~
Always understood, dad ~(always understood, dad)~
Taught me what was right, dad ~(taught me what was right, dad)~
Opened up my eyes, dad ~(opened up my eyes, dad)~
Glad to call you my dad ~(Glad to call you my dad)~
Thank you for my life dad