I vote for you, for me, for him.

I voted today for you, for me, for him.

I voted today because I actually do care about people.

I voted today because I care about democracy.

I voted today because I firmly believe that my privilege in this world increases my responsibility to provide for as many as possible. To lift them up. To support equity and access.

I voted today because I would rather hope and love than hate.

I voted today because I believe you deserve the very best life for you.

I voted today because when he grows up, I can look him in the eye and tell him that I didn't remain ignorant because it seemed easier, because I like my cozy little bubble, because I didn't want to worry about something that was troublesome.

I voted today because where we are as a country is simply not ok.

I voted today because people gave their lives for me to have this privilege.

I voted today because it isn't about just me.

I voted today because people and social issues are more important to me than money.

I voted today because I do believe in fiscal responsibility.

I voted today because as they come for me and my family, I want to stop them before they come for yours.

I voted today because we are better than this. We will be better than this.

I voted today because I want us to find our moral compass again.

I voted today because I believe that Jesus would be among the migrant families trying to survive, not guarding the wall. I believe that God first and foremost created us ALL in his image - not only those who look, act, and are at the same economic level as you. I believe that power is a destructive tool in the wrong hands. I believe that people are good; it is power, greed, and ignorance that create hate and anger toward others, especially others who have no effect on your life - at all.

I vote today, because the love I have in my heart for my son means that I have to make the very best world for him and others.

And no, if you support hate, if you say you are a fiscal conservative and a social liberal who votes for the current republican party, then you care more about money than you do about people, so stop acting like it is anything but.

I have seen so many lately saying that we should all be friends no matter how we vote. And until the current administration was in place, I believed that staunchly, and I hope to believe that again.

However, this is not political anymore. If you support the current administration and believe that it is ok to sexually harass people, conduct criminal activity, become allies to countries who are led by fascist dictators, try to erase people based on a misled biblical belief, are willing to take babies from their mother's arms as she tries to save their lives, never to be reunited, think that my family should be abolished, feel that women should be neither seen nor heard unless to be commanded or groped, feel that only the wealthy elite matter, then no, I do not have time or space in my life for that.

See, this isn't about policy. This isn't about job growth or the economy. This is about people's lives. And if you can't see that or if you don't care, then your privilege is blinding to you and those around you. And if that is the space where you choose to live, then we don't simply have a difference in politics, we have a difference in morality. And that is not something I can overlook.

Five Years.

I have written this post in my head several times in the days leading up to and during the fifth anniversary of your passing. It feels different now. It almost feels more permanent - not easier, not harder, just different. Perhaps it is because of all that has passed since you've been gone. Perhaps it is because I feel like I have a little piece of you again in your namesake. Perhaps it is because I'm different. Or more probable still, it is a little of all of these things.

Five years.

In the last five years, so many major life events have taken place. I honestly cannot say that I felt you there the vast majority of the time, but I did on December 9th. When they laid him on my chest, when I kissed him and held him for the first time. When he looked at me with such an old soul in his sweet and wondrous eyes, I saw you. A strange and unknown sense of peace entered my life on that day. At the same time, more anxiety than I have ever known accompanied it. As always, the yin and yang of life, one comes with the other.

Five years.

Molly, James, and Henry have grown so much. They all have learned to ski and are quite good at it. Mom is as busy as ever, always on the move, traveling, working, and adventuring. All of us kids are in full swing with work and kids and life. But there is still a hole where you belong. There is still an empty seat at the table where our hearts ache for your mischief.

Five years.

He has your eyes, dark and intense as well as humorous and twinkling. He has your sweet nature mixed with a healthy dose of skepticism and consideration. He is physical and thoughtful. He loves the wind and the sun and the calling of the outdoors. He loves watching the world go by at Harbour River and enjoys a good glass of the house white. He woos everyone he meets, but can quickly tire of their presence. He is a gift. From you. Thank you.

Five years.

I miss you. I miss your laugh and your antics. I miss your wisdom and your thoughtfulness. I miss your story telling and your antagonistic ways. We finally laid you to rest this year. A saying goodbye in a way. A letting go. An embracing of what is true - you no longer walk beside us in this space. As they worked on your gravesite - placing an enormous slab of slate that marked the place for us to visit - a small brown bird stayed and watched all day. I have no doubt it was you, thankful to see it come to another kind of end and beginning.

Five years. 

A thousand gifts.

The greatest one being a little piece of you.

This time is different. I'm different.

I have always disliked Valentine's Day as a holiday. If you're single and not happy about it, it reminds you of it in a crappy way. If you are single and happy about it, people seem to give you more of the sympathetic side eye on a day like this (as if being single is a bad thing!). If you are in a relationship, but struggling, you feel it more intensely. If you are in a wonderful relationship, it makes you feel like you should be doing more on just this day. And let's be honest, the candy around this holiday just doesn't make it worth the splurge (Tweet me, really?).

But this year feels different. It feels like a gentle reminder to pull my head out of newborn land and be grateful for my marriage, for the love that is with me through the good and the bad. I never thought I would need a reminder to be grateful and appreciative - to celebrate us. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful and appreciative each day, but I can't say that I have made any time to "celebrate" us, our marriage, our story. Having a new baby is more consuming than I imagined it would be, especially when he has had a tough go of it. Now that he is feeling better, and we are starting to feel better, I have the room to miss "us".

And so today, I do not dislike this holiday. I am grateful for the reminder, for the excuse to do something a little special (I did say little, we still have a tiny nugget that has just a few needs throughout the day and night). I am also grateful for our newest little valentine. I look forward to the time when he gets excited to give and receive valentines. I look forward to it all, so incredibly, crazily happy to have him, to love him, to snuggle him, and to be his mom. He is pretty awesome.

So while I do get it - the dislike many have for what feels like such a commercialized holiday, I am also grateful for it, for the new perspective, for all of the love in my life, and for all of the intangible gifts that it brings. So use the day to celebrate you, your own "us", those you love, or simply the appreciation for candied hearts with affirming messages on them. After all, life really is about loving and being loved, which really does deserve it's own holiday.

Thankful for More Than a Season

I'm told it is the season to be thankful. To be honest, I do feel it more this time of year than any other. A time when family and friends gather. A time when posts on social media are more loving and thoughtful. A time when life is insane and yet slows down enough to give thanks for all that we are fortunate enough to have. I'm fairly certain this is why I absolutely love this time of year. I love the holidays. I love being with my family. I love the company and joy of my friends. I love my dogs curled at my feet and the coming of cooler weather. But I'm one of the lucky ones.

I feel so thankful all of the time. Beyond gratitude for the life that I lead. However, I believe that I feel so much gratitude for my life because of the most difficult of times. I do not believe we can understand joy without understanding hurt. My perspective on life has been drastically altered by specific events in life, the four most prominent: Moving to Salt Lake City with no money, living in low income housing, and working at a grocery store as one of three jobs where I relied greatly on the food the deli would give me at the end of the day (otherwise to be discarded) as I did not have the income to purchase much. The death of my father several years ago made me quickly realize that life was short and that love and family and friends are truly what matter. Getting married and having a true partner in life brought me such joy and fulfillment. Becoming a mother has altered me in ways I do not yet know. 

These four points in my life all came with such love and joy and such heartache and pain that they altered my psyche. How lucky am I? How lucky to have had these experiences so early in life. I now know what matters most. I value my friends and family, adventures, and living above work. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE what I do. I see great value and find such fulfillment in working with such amazing people who are so committed to making the world a better place. The joy I get from my work is immensely rewarding. Yet I realize now that I will not be remembered for the work or for any achievements I may have over my life. 

The above mentioned points in my life have shown me that it is not WHAT you do, but HOW you do it that matters the most. The residents that learned under my dad do not remember him for what he taught them, but how he taught them - how he made them feel, the good and the bad. My clients and past coworkers will not remember me for plans I helped them make or goals we worked together to achieve, but they will remember me for how I made them feel along the way and the journey and ride, not the end goal. 

The same is true for friends and family. We will be remembered for being loved and for loving well. 

I will be remembered by my niece and nephews for the love they felt from me. I will be remembered by my friends and my family for what we all mean to each other in life. I will be remembered through my wife's and son's eyes for all of our conversations, adventures, challenges, and life stories. Again, how lucky am I?

How lucky that I'm able to shape my life to be there for my family and friends. How lucky that I have been given every opportunity along the way. How lucky to share this life with the most amazing people doing incredible work to make a difference. 

So yes, I am grateful today. I am grateful everyday - no, I'm not being cheesy. Truly, I am beyond thankful in this time of year and each day that follows. 

So here is my challenge to you in this season and every season. Do not wait until it is suggested by the holiday to be thankful. Love your life - the good and the bad. Embrace the pain as you know that joy will follow and will be felt more than ever before. Do not run away from the hard as that is not escape, it is just delay of the inevitable. Run toward life and all that it brings. Take that risk - jump at the chance to really live and love. Sure, chances are you will hurt along the way, but in the end, do not look back and wish that you had lived differently. Life is short and powerful. It will pass in a blink of an eye, so don't wait until tomorrow to be grateful and figure it out. Figure it out now. Live and be grateful now. Do not get caught forever in the neutral zone. When you are caught in a rapid, you have to paddle faster or slower than the current to have any control of where you end up. So paddle fast or paddle slow or switch it up, but don't let the rapid take control because you're frozen with fear. 

Thank you for being on this great ride of a life with me. Thank you for providing me with love and friendship and laughter and tears. Thank you for being you and being in my life. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all and many wishes for joy and love in the years ahead. 

A walk through hell for a little slice of heaven

Life is wonderfully, amazingly, beautifully hard. Each moment in our journey is a tick of time that leads us to another tick of time that add up to big and little moments that shape who we are and how we react to what comes next. Every decision, handshake, hello, goodbye, hug, tear, and laugh dictates the great makeup of our life. Sometimes those moments are so suffocatingly joyful and at other times so devastatingly painful, but what is one without the other?

This post is about our journey to motherhood. It has been an amazing adventure with many wonderful moments and many heartbreaking ones, but all ours. Over the past three years, Lisa and I have grown together and formed a strength and love that knows no bounds. For this, I am eternally grateful for each heartbreak. This has been our walk through hell for a little slice of heaven.

I debated for quite a while about putting our story out there. As incredibly private people, this specific journey seems so personal, so private, but in reality, it isn't. This is a journey that so many, too many, have traveled. Each time I speak to someone about it, I find someone new who has had much of the same pain and confusion. And many times, when the person hasn't experienced this journey, what they say is an attempt to relate, but feels like another slap in the face. So this entry will do two things, share with you some very happy news and provide a few tips of what to do and not to do when you find someone you care about is struggling in the same way.

First, our journey:

I've known only one certain in my life since childhood: I want to be a mother. This one thing has never wavered nor changed. I also had a gut feeling in my adulthood that this would not be an easy feat. I was correct. When we started the fertility journey, I soon discovered that for medical reasons, IVF would be our only option. And so we began. My body responded to the insane amount of hormones injected into it fairly well minus the fact that it caused me to gain far more weight than I could have imagined. My diet did not change, my routine changed slightly due to the danger of exercise when doing IVF, but my body did. 20 pounds, 19 eggs, a lot of shots later, and we ended up with 5 day 5 embryos. Great, I thought. This is it! How could this not work? It did, but not for long.

After two full rounds of IVF and four transfers, we got pregnant each time. And each time we miscarried - 4 miscarriages back to back. This was our walk through hell. There are a lot of details in this time, blood clots in my lungs, doctors in Charleston, New York, and Atlanta, a lot of praying, many tears, and eventually the feeling that my body simply hated me. We then decided to take six months off. We laughed and cried. We traveled and loved. We ate and drank and didn't think about IVF or children or what we didn't have. We were simply grateful for what we did have.

And then we gave it one last shot. 

And here we are. Our happy news. Our sweet little boy is due around Christmas. The best miracle we could ever receive. I hesitate to share simply because I am scared each day that we will lose him, but today, I am only grateful and happy and in love with this perfect little man.

So for those of you who have struggled, are struggling, or are entering this journey, our hearts are with you. We are here if you have questions or want to talk. Know that you are not alone, that it is a difficult path, but that you will learn so much about yourself and others along the way.

Now for a few suggestions. If you know someone going through infertility and loss, these are things you should perhaps not say. Feel free to stop reading here if you always know what to say in these situations. 😉

1) You're life can be really happy without children. (Sure it can be. But we want children, badly, so badly that we would put our body and savings through hell fire to have one. So please, don't say this. Ever.)

2) Just relax, it will happen. (Yeah, this sometimes is true, but telling a woman on fertility drugs who feels like a failure because she can't get pregnant and who has a team of medical professionals trying to help her is not helpful. Also, relaxing does not always produce babies, no matter how much we mediate.)

3) If God wants it to happen, it will happen. Have faith. (Faith is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but God also gave us brains and ability to perform modern medical miracles. You telling me that I can't get pregnant because God doesn't want it to happen is not ok. Not ok at all.)

4) But you're an aunt - being an aunt is even better than being a mom. (I LOVE being an aunt. It makes me so crazy happy. But being an aunt is not the same as being a mother. It just isn't).

5) Why don't you just adopt. (Yes, because that is super easy and cheap. Not everyone can go with adoption. Not everyone wants to. That is a personal choice and a financial one. Try not to make assumptions unless you have the background facts.)

6) Here, I'll lend you my kids for a day or two, that should cure your desire to have kids. (Ok, so I am going to hope you can see how this type of comment isn't helpful. I realize kids are hard and that you, as a parent, are tired and see our life as a great adult only adventure, but please be sensitive. I love your kids, but watching your kids does not equate to not wanting my own. Would you ever choose to not have your children any longer? No, probably not, and neither would I.)

7) Miscarriages happen, they are so common. (This basically dismisses the pain that someone is going through after a miscarriage. While this may be true, miscarriages do not always happen to YOU. It is painful and sad and physically hard. Also, some of us have had way more than the "usual" one miscarriage, but even if you have had one, that is more than anyone should ever have to experience.)

There are many more, but you get the picture. 😊 I know that these comments are made to simply try and be helpful or break a tension you feel because you don't know what to say or how to react, but here are some ways to be helpful and sensitive:

1) I can't imagine everything you are going through, but I'm here to listen if you ever just need to talk about it.

2) You would be an amazing mother/father, and I am going to hope (and pray if they are religious) for your miracle. I'm thinking of you and am here if you ever need anything or want to talk.

3) If you have gone through it, tell your story. Tell them you still remember what those days felt like and how lonely it can be. Then let them know you are here and willing to listen.

4) Don't ask where people are on their journey. I know you are interested and want them to know you are thinking of them. They will know this too, but I promise people will share if and when a pregnancy works or doesn't work. Asking makes for an awkward conversation and sometimes emotional when those experiencing infertility aren't ready to share. Also, we are super nervous something bad will happen and we will lose the baby. Therefore, many of us do not want to share until we feel better about things. Instead, you can simply ask, "How are you?" That is a great starter for people to share if they feel ready or to not if they don't.

I don't know if you sense a theme or not, but mainly, it is to listen and not offer solutions, advice, or anecdote. We all know that if you say some of the don't says, that more than likely you are simply trying to be helpful. We all get that and know it is coming from the right place. However, sometimes, we should all stick to empathy or sympathy for the best outcomes. 😁

So that's it. We are so excited to welcome baby boy Lambeth in December. We have waited a long time for him and can't wait to become parents.

Where I was raised

I was raised in a wonderful home on, what was at the time, the corner of Bank and Royall in the Old Village of Mt. Pleasant, SC.  I rode my bike to school, and on the way home from school, I would stop at Pitt Street Pharmacy for 5 cent candy, a toasted egg salad sandwich, and a real vanilla coke out of the fountain. I would often buy a second sandwich for my pediatrician, Dr. Ward, whom I loved, and would walk it down to his office and sit for a little chat before I peddled home to my family.  For all intents and purposes, I grew up in Mayberry.

But even Mayberry has it's unspoken, but very real harsh realities. As I mentioned, I grew up next to Royall, which today, when you drive down it, appears to be similar to many other roads in the neighborhood. In 1986, it was very different. This one road was a dividing wall between black and white - not to be crossed by either race. White children were not to play with black and vice versa. I was friends with a wonderful girl in the 5th grade. She was black. I was not allowed to go to her house, nor she mine. And so we would walk home slowly, enjoying our friendship away from the division we did not understand, but knew we could not change.

While I am getting older, lord knows, I am not that old. This was less than 30 years ago.

When I was figuring out where to move 5.5 years ago, it was difficult for me to consider moving back to this beautiful city. My memories were of societal rules that I didn't agree with nor felt the urge to conform to. The thought of returning to a city where a street would separate black and white so forcefully without a single physical factor in play, where appearances mattered more than truth, and where speaking your mind was frowned upon, was not an easy one.

And yet, my mother and father were in Charleston, my family.

I returned.

In 2010, I found a much changed Charleston. While this city is still the same in so many ways, it has changed and continues to change. The people, old and new, are bringing about the changes that can be so painful for those who resist it with all their might. This city has been damaged time and again over the centuries. Each time, the people rebuild the city, only better.

June of 2015 is no different. If the cameras were not rolling, we would still be rebuilding this city even better than before. We would stand hand in hand, learning from our historical mistakes, and leaning on our community leaders to guide us, but not afraid of the work. Charleston is forever changed, but the lives lost in creating that change are great. The devastation drives the love. It is my hope that when the flag is down, the funerals complete, the media is gone, that the love shines even brighter. It is my hope that when we all see the lights of the Ravenel Bridge, the boats in the harbor, the church steeples above the skyline, we will not forget that this great city continues to be rebuilt, and how it raises its children in the future generations is up to us. 

Let us raise our families to love, to understand, to ask questions, to create change, to change societal rules that hurt those whose voices are silenced, to know that appearances do not matter more than truth, and to remember how to embrace everyone in this great Holy City.

If I am lucky enough to one day have children, I will teach them about what happened on June 17th, 2015. I will teach them the history of this nation and the world: civil rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, and everything in between. I will do this in the hope that several generations from now, love will have driven out hate, that education will drive out ignorance, and that they will know those who knowingly and unknowingly sacrificed their lives so that our world would be better, that we would be better.

I love my city, my home. I am forever grateful for the chance to come home, to be a part of the next chapter in the life of one of the greatest cities in this nation.

And on this day, more than anything, my thoughts, love, and tears go out to the families of the nine incredible and amazing victims of the shooting on June 17th, and to every family of those who have sacrificed all.

May we all remember and continue the work so many before us have begun.

We all travel different roads...

Why do we feel compelled to judge one another without a second thought to circumstance?

There is so much that we all go through on a daily basis that no one else fully realizes. Why should they? Who do we tell? Do we share too much? Too little? Either way, we just don't know, so don't judge as if you do.  This is a note to myself as much as to you. Don't judge. Period.

The woman who is driving too slow in the left lane may have just lost her spouse. She may be heading to the funeral home to make decisions she never wanted to make.

Or maybe her daughter just had a baby. A baby who will never live to see tomorrow.

Or maybe her dog is at the emergency vet receiving dialysis that may or may not save his/her life.

Or maybe her house just burned down and she is trying to find the closest Red Cross building to make her appointment for help.

Or maybe her favorite song came on, the one that reminds her of that Summer, and she got lost, even if just for a moment.

Or maybe she is daydreaming of the life she has yet to lead.

You don't know. I don't know. So before you judge, just don't.

We all have our own roads to travel. Some of those roads are wonderful and lush, full of passion and excitement. Others are hard and worn, full of despair and faithlessness. Some of them are everything in between - the ones we get through, the ones we survive, and the ones we have joy in recounting. We all travel these roads. That is the one thing I try to always remember.