Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

Watch my grandson Xavier try to learn to say "Happy Mother's Day"

I really love watching this video of my grandson Xavier and his dad Adam Jones.  Dad's trying to teach his almost two-year-old son to say "Happy Mother's Day."  Putting those three magic words together on video prove to be too much.  But, I know his mom loved it.  I know that his grandma did.

We are learning how to enjoy being long-distance grandparents

How many of you are long-distance grandparents?

We are and our long distance is more than a few states away.  Our grandson Xavier, our daughter Krista and her husband Adam live in Bosnia.  That's a long plane ride away, another one across the Alps and then a car ride from Croatia to their home.

How do you maintain family closeness when there's such a distance?  We've not found a way to duplicate family dinners that take three hours because of lots of table talk that could be about anything from "A" to "Z" with a fair amount of politics and current events mixed in.

But, we have made great use of online video chats using Facebook, Google Plus and Skype.  Last Saturday, we visited for more than an hour with our grandson trying to feed us Cheerios through the computer and where we got some terrific news.  Our daughter is pregnant with her second child.  That means more news, more family happenings and all that good family stuff.

 

Check this Forbes magazine interview with my daughter-in-law, Lauren Thorp, about Umba Box

 

My daughter-in-law Lauren is changing her world one Umba Box at a time.  It's about her new business where subscribers pay her to send them the best of the best handcrafted items for women.  She started it last year and since then it has gotten media attention around the country.

 

Check this interview in Forbes.com where she's interviewed about her experience as a new entrepeneur, especially as a woman breaking into the business world.  

I'm really impressed with her insightful answers to the questions and to her whole business approach.  It's worth a read and Umba Box is worth a look.

My brother became more real to me on Friday night

Super-wife and I were sitting in our usual spots on the couch watching an episode of Dowton Abbey when I plugged the name of my brother, Claude Thorpe, into Google and it shot back his obituary from a New York newspaper.  I was incredulous that it was him.  He was somebody that I heard of from the time that I was a small boy.  He was never more than a name occasionally talked about and written about in old letters.

But, he was my brother.  Actually, my half-brother.  We shared a father who had him with another woman. As an aside, can you call a half-sibling a brother or sister?  I am choosing to call my half-brother, a brother because I feel he is.  I had one other half-brother and a half-sister.  So, that's two brothers and a sister.

When I found the obit from the paper, my eyes were glued to the reality of family that I never really knew. There was a cautious excitement.  Then I decided to ask my friends for some help.  I went to Facebook and my 800 plus friends and shared a screenshot of the notice of my brother's death and asked for their suggestions to find out more.

The responses poured in within minutes.  Wow!  A neighbor who knows her way around the web and who has an inquiring mind poured her heart into finding more.  A friend in St. Louis joined in.  A family-member in Maine offered some info.  More than 40 responses in a Facebook thread that took place over a couple of hours.

Where do I stand with this?

I know more than I did before.  My brother became a little more real and a couple more holes in my personal identity were filled in.  I will keep working at this.  It's not over yet.  I wish I could have known my brother before he died.  He had my dad's name.  

I find myself remembering what our pastor said in a sermon about identity.  "Remember who you are.  Remember who you are.  Remember who you are."  For too many years, I let my identity of my earthly father rise higher than my identity as the child of my heavenly Father.

I would still like to know more about my dad and his side of the family.

 

I was just looking for an excuse to buy the book "Inside Apple" for my son

In a post yesterday, I pondered whether my son Justin read my blog and whether he would read that post where I offered to buy him a book about the corporate culture at Apple computer.  It's a book that had him written all over it.  He's always been fascinated by organizations and how they work and how they stay viable.

And I knew he's a Kindle user on his iPad and that he reads a lot particularly on his bus ride to and from work.  I was sure he had heard of "Inside Apple" by Adam Lashinsky of Fortune magazine, but I knew that he probably had a stack of unread books on his iPad.

I still thought it would be a neat gift for those days when the bus is caught in traffic.  So, I got him the book by purchasing a gift card where all he had to do to get the book was click on a link.  It's a great way to buy somebody a gift.

Yes, he does read my blog.  I knew that.  And I'm happy that we have that point of contact through blogging.

Next, I have to find out about kid's books on the Kindle.  My almost two-year-old grandson in Bosnia is a prime candidate.  Then there's my daughter, my daughter-in-law and my son-in-law.  I love buying people books.  

A snow blower video for my 19-month old grandson Xavier

Our grandson Xavier lives on a mountain side in Eastern Europe and our visits have been great, but mainly over the web on Skype.  They recently got a big dump of snow and he got a chance to use his own snow shovel.

He's a kid who loves big trucks, engines that make a lot of noise and he would be a fan of snow blowers if he was around.

To deal with our hard winter which we haven't had, I bought a new snow blower.  I made a video to show him how it works.  Here it is:

 

Checking to see if my son, Justin, reads my blog

Actually, I'm pretty sure that my son Justin, at least, checks the titles on my blog posts and reads some

along the way and as he has time for.  But, to see if he's reading my blog this morning, I have an offer for him.

I read an excerpt of a book this weekend that he would absolutely love, Inside Apple by Adam Lashinsky of Fortune magazine.

It outlines the corporate culture at Apple and gives great examples of how it works and anecdotes about the premium it puts on secrecy.  Wow.  It even keeps employees from different groups from talking with each other about what they are working on.  The place doesn't sound like much fun.  It sounds more like one big closed-up religion.

It reminds me of the first twelve episodes of Homeland with Clare Danes that I watched on Showtime. There's plenty of reason to be paranoid, apparently, if you work at Apple.

My deal for Justin:  If you read this and you haven't read the book and if you are interested in reading it, can I buy it for you on Kindle.  It would be a for national "You're a Great Son" day.  And then you can lend it back to me when you're done.  Looks like a great book to read on the beach.

 

My Uncle Ralph changed his zip code to heaven

My mom came from a family of twelve brothers and sisters, six boys and six girls.  This means that I had lots of aunts and uncles while I was growing up.  And because most of them lived in and around Bay City, I saw them frequently.

With the death over the weekend of my Uncle Ralph Moll, I now have one uncle left and two aunts. My Uncle Ralph is now in heaven after passing away two days after his 89th birthday.  

My mother's family left a huge imprint on my life.  They have a story that would match any of the Little House on the Prairie books with drama, excitement, family, hard times, survival and love.  I didn't always appreciate the sibling relationships that existed with them.  

Their parents died young while they were living on a farm in the Thumb of Michigan when many were still young kids.  The older ones including my mom kept the family together through a lot of tough times and going without.  I know that it was slog, mixed in with some good times.

Uncle Ralph was part of the group and one of the men that I looked up to as a role model on what it meant to be a man.  

He had three sons and a daughter.  His son Roger was killed during the Vietnam war.  

I thank God for my aunts and uncles.  They weren't perfect, but they provided a framework for life.  

Uncle Ralph now joins my mom and the others in the heavenly stands cheering on those of us still left here on earth.

 

Talking to my grandson in Bosnia over Facebook video

Go ahead and ask me about my grandson Xavier in Bosnia.  He's doing great.  He's putting words together and throws them out with a ton of personality and spirit.  We talked over Facebook video.  It worked pretty well.  Google+  Hangout was more of a challenge.

A Mark Twain quote from my son about the two most important days in your life

In listening to the sermon at his church yesterday, Justin picked up this quote from Mark Twain.  I've got to think on this one.  It makes me take a extra couple of swallows of coffee.  Anybody agree?  Disagree?

Why does "super-wife" have a pit bull sitting in her lap?

When we visited our son Justin and his wife Lauren for Thanksgiving we met our new "grand dog" Latte.  She's a pit bull-beagle mix.  Now for us over sixty type that was kind of a surprise.  Here in the midwest we see pit bulls through a different filter.

Latte was charming, laid back, liked to cuddle on the couch and had painted toe nails.  She had big eyes and big teeth and looked like she had the strength to pull a Honda Civic out of a ditch.  

She was a delight much like her owners and how they live life.  Very comfortable with others, like to get out see things and meet people and have a little snap, crackle and pop in their smiles.

My son-Justin Thorp-talks about being part of the D.C. tech community

I invite you to catch up with my son Justin on his blog Oatmeal Stout-Justin Thorp's Blog.  This morning he posted about being part of the Washington, D.C. tech community.  When he started working in D.C. more than five years ago, the tech community consisted of a bunch of guys and maybe a girl getting together at a bar.  Now it has grown to get-togethers where a major auditorium is filled.

This community has served as a foundry where tech types throw their ideas and their contacts into a big pot and form a synergy that benefits everybody.

Did you know that he changed jobs?  He started with the Library of Congress, moved to Clearspring/Add This and he's now at Hello Wallet.  

This kid-my grandson-is cute and he's smart

I'm not sure if I mentioned before that I have a cute and really smart grandson.  My favorite daughter and her husband live in Bosnia.  When the clock struck 6 a.m. here and super-wife was in bed, I got her up to see this video.  She's really smiling.

Happy Anniversary to Krista and Adam, my daughter and son-in-law!

Dear Xavier,
Your grandma and I are thinking about you and your family today as your mom and dad celebrate their third wedding anniversary. You might be only 15 months old but you can help them "hoop and holler" a little bit to let the world know.

Because of that day when they got married and committed their lives to each other and to God, you are part of a special family. You have a mom and dad handpicked for you.

When we come to visit you in the spring, I can tell you about their wedding and how I walked your mom down the aisle and handed her off to your father.

They are special people. They love you very much. I have all kinds of neat stories about your mom. I was there when she was born and I was part of her growing-up. I've gotten to know your dad pretty well too and I'm impressed with his love for you and your mom.

Today's a day for cake and ice cream or some suitable substitute.

When your mom and your Uncle Justin were growing-up, they were an important part of celebrating our wedding anniversaries. And you need to carry on the tradition.

You need to know that Grandma Thorp and I went to your favorite store last Sunday--the Apple Store--in the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids. Will I have a new computer to show you when we visit? Not yet, but I'm looking.

I love you big man.

Grandpa Thorp

MY BOOK: Lesson learned is that my identity centers around "Remember Who I Am" and not my father

I've struggled with the question of my personal identity all my life.  It's something I've kept to myself for the most part until now.  

My identity as an individual, as a boy, as a man, as a husband and as a dad was shaped by my own father who abandoned my mom and me when I was 18 months old.  I'm not looking for sympathy.  And I certainly don't have the toughest dad story out there.  Many have experienced extreme trauma at the hands of or because of their father.

My experience with my missing father who walked out and never came back, never called, never wrote and just dropped off the radar was extreme, but its effect were more subtle.  The scars are very real and they show themselves from time to time and have effected the way I view myself.

This has touched the way I relate to other people, the insecurities I have felt and the way I saw the future. I admit it.

That started to change last year when I heard a sermon from our pastor where he kept repeating, "Remember Who You Are.  Remember Who You Are.  Remember Who You Are."

I did find my father when I was in my late twenties.  He was wealthy and had another family and was living in a posh house in southern Florida.  He disowned me during our thirty-second conversation.  I felt a combination of anger and sadness and felt a deeper wound to my personal identity.

It was a feeling that stuck to me like a brand burned into my back that said I was worth less than others.  That feeling was like a big monkey on my back that would kick its legs into my side anytime it wanted.

It's a feeling that I never volunteered for and never wanted.  I wanted to feel normal like other people.  I would for a while and then the monkey would kick me in the sides.

I think I found the answer.  It's not who abandoned me and threw me on the trash heap that matters. It's the one who picked me up and who adopted me into his family.

Has the cycle of bad fathering been broken?  I think so.  I pray that I've learned from my father experience.

I'm thinking of all the kids from single-parent families who are struggling with the identity issue. What can I share that might be helpful to them?

That's why I'm trying to write and share this.  We can learn from each other's experience.

 

 

You've got to check out my daughter-in-law's new business to offer top handcrafted items through Umba Box

Do you or a significant other like the really nice handcrafted stuff that makes life a little brighter, that produces smiles of appreciation to everybody who sees it?  Take a look at my daughter-in-law's new business Umba Box where she offers specially handpicked handcrafted items through a monthly subscription service.

Her name is Lauren Thorp and she's married to our son Justin and they live in Washington, D.C.  I knew she was special when our son first introduced us to her and her layers of specialness kept getting unwrapped as we got to know her.

You've got to love a girl who can take an ordinary c-clamp or a hanger and make it into a useful, but stylish part of a living room.  Their wedding was a feast of specially crafted items by her that added to the celebration in a major and unique way.

Enrollment opens today as she travels to New York City for the Martha Stewart Show where she will be part of some live-tweeting action.  Click her for more details to be part of the first hundred subscribers.  She also has a Facebook page for Umba Box.

MY REVIEW: The newly-released movie Courageous about fatherhood and fatherlessness

Yes, you should go see the movie Courageous this weekend and take your wife or husband, your children's father or mother and your kids and then talk about it.  The topic:  fatherhood and fatherlessness.  

On the surface that may sound plenty boring compared to watching something where cars get blown-up or where there are writhing bodies filled with enthusiastic and explicit lust.  But, this movie tackles one of the most important topics in our contemporary culture.  The role of fathers has been allowed to languish on the altar of cultural change and we are paying a stiff price for it.

The movie focuses on four fathers who are all cops and a young Hispanic handyman type.  There are three guys, one divorced and with a son, one unmarried and with a daughter he never met, one more traditional family type who wrestled with connecting with his teenage son and who adored his nine-year-old daughter.  The black cop never knew his dad but was married and had a teenage daughter.  

In their individual families, they were struggling with being fathers and holding demanding jobs. They had to deal with young thugs in a gang that served as a major distributor of dope.

One obstacle for many to getting into this film is its inclusion of open, out-of-the-closet Christianity and male characters who read the Bible and who tried to gain a connection to God through it.

But in this period of our culture where inclusion is the buzzword, this is just part of a very legitimate story.  Film viewers need to process the importance of this for themselves.  The main issue is fathers.

Do they play a unique role in their children's lives?  Do they add something to their kids that can't be given by moms?  Are today's dads fulfilling their responsibilities?  Do they know what those responsibilities are?

These are issues which need to take center stage in churches, in bars, at the workplace and in sports stadiums.  

As fans get-together tonight and throughout the coming days for baseball playoffs and the World Series, they need to open the door for the fatherhood issue.

Courageous is a movie worth seeing and talking about.  It's a good story and its told in an entertaining way and for kids who are suffering from some form of fatherlessness, it's vital.

Go see it.

MY BOOK: I was an adult before I could say the word "dad" comfortably without wincing

The word "dad" never meant anything at all to me until one day in the late seventies when I was holding the hand of a four-year-old and crossing a busy street in East Lansing.  On our way to a baseball field, he looked up and called me "dad."  

My heart smiled when he called me that.  That's the first time in my life that the word dad had ever had a positive meaning for me.  Up to that point, my lips could never make the sounds that go into that simple word.  To me, a D-A-D was somebody who threw you off a moving train to let you fend for yourself.

I spent a good chunk of my life looking for an older man to be a father figure, somebody to affirm that I had worth and that I had hope for being a productive and happy member of society.  I had uncles, twelve of them, and I spent some time with each of them.  They were nice people, but they had their own families and their interaction with me was always clipped and very short.

What I've learned about life and how to live it has been on my own.  I'm self-taught for the most part. I can't underestimate the role of my mom.  She was a template of a strong-woman who had strong values and whose life was centered on love for God and for others.  But, as a young guy, there were limits to what a mom could pass to a growing son.

After high school and graduation from college, my friends started having their own kids.  To me, being a dad seemed to be a topic out of reach for me.  My understanding of it was influenced by my experience with my own father.

Then, my four-year-old friend lit a small fire in me.  Being a father had a growing attraction.  It grew and then it became a reality.  

Why am I sharing this?

My dad vanished when I was 18-months-old, leaving my mother and me without money with barefly a roof over our heads.  I've been blessed beyond my ability to count each one.  But I was left with a lifetime of observations and learning about what happens to a guy who was thrown off the figurative train by his dad.

One lesson:  You can feel the sting and the scars of being abandoned and deserted by a parent and become a loving and productive parent.

What job from my life have I liked the best?

Being a dad!

More  to come.

MY BOOK: Is it ever too late for dropped out fathers to reconcile with their children?

I still occasionally wonder what it would have been like to have my father write or call me and say, "Let's talk."  Would it have been too late and could anything from our relationship have been rescued?

My dad disappeared and vanished back in 1948 when I was 18 months old leaving my mother and me to fend for ourselves.  He never returned, called or wrote.  I'm sharing my story as a "bucket list" type of exercise to help others who have gone through similar experiences and to help inform pastors, neighbors and siblings about the needs of families in this kind of situation.

PLEASE NOTE:  The photo to the right is of my dad holding me when I was a newborn.

Why is this so important to me?

My dad's desertion left a gaping void in my life that manifested itself in many ways throughout my life. For the record, I was raised by a mom who was a wonder-woman who was totally devoted to raising me and to getting me to a productive and happy  adulthood.  My things to be thankful-for list is long and amazing.

But at age 65, I can still run my fingers over the scars left by my missing dad.  I wasn't crippled by being fatherless, but having my father leave and never come back and then disown me after I found him left me with wounds that too few want to talk about or recognize.

Could it have been different if my dad had sucked-up his pride and took time to share himself with a blood child?  Could our relationship have been reconciled?  Was it too late?  What was holding him back?  What would have been the payback for me if he had acknowledged me and called me his "son?"

I grew-up feeling that the word father never applied to me.  My dad was a no-show for most of my life.  I knew that kids came from two halves and I was missing an important 50 percent.  I spent much of my childhood and adult life searching for a father-figure and never found one.  I had uncles who would talk politics with me at a young age.  But they never asked or talked about my life, not once that I can remember.

Let me add that I am a father and that being a father has been one of the best experiences of my life. The fact that I have loving, grounded and focused kids is a miracle of the proportion of splitting the Red Sea.  It's truly a God thing and a wife who was heaven-sent.

As I continue with my story, I hope that there are errant dads out there who understand the power they hold over their offspring, particularly their sons.  One small step can affect multiple generations.

There's part of me that still hopes there's a letter out there to me from my deceased father where he acknowledges me as his son.  It's not to be, I'm sure.  But I can flip the coin over and shed some light for my son, my son-in-law and my granson.  They hold power as dads and potential dads.

And when they make mistakes, there's redemption and reconciliation and getting-up.

More to come.

 

MY BOOK: Growing up in a church that was not sympathetic to single moms and fatherless kids

Raise your hand if you think a church would be a good place for a single-mom and her kids to get help to deal with the ups and downs of daily life, as well as the larger eternal questions.  But what's the experience?

If you read the Bible and look at what it says about how the church and its people need to serve widows and orphans, it should be a no-brainer that you would direct single-moms and their kids to a local church.  The Word of God is filled with examples of how Jesus Christ showed love and compassion to people at all levels of need.  

Growing up at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Bay City, Michigan, I found a lot of really nice people, but I saw and experienced little more than talk when it came to showing the love of Jesus to my mom and me.  As I grew, I felt more and more that there were the regular acceptable people at the church where there was a father and mother with their kids and then there were people like my mom and me who were in a mutant family arrangement.

Why am I mentioning this?

As I progress in sharing my story and how it was influenced by the disappearance of my dad, I want to use my experiences to help various anybody involved on either end of the fatherless child equation, single-moms, their kids, grandparents, pastors, teachers, errant dads, and friends.  

Fatherless kids and their single-parents abound in today's culture and they face obstacles where they can use help, lots of help and the church is on the frontlines and needs understanding and encouragement to be involved.

The seeds of my faith in God sprouted in church, in Sunday School and in a parochial day school.  But, as I grew the church became an obstacle, rather than a conduit.

This will offend some people in the church and that's not my intent.  I hope the institution and its leaders can examine its performance in this area and make whatever corrections necessary.

Pastors need to listen-up, as do elders and other leaders.  This issue is tearing at our culture and taking a toll on individuals.  Many who are affected don't want to talk or think about it.  Somebody has to raise the issue.  More to come.