One of the overwhelming but benevolent elements of the last few months has been the support Lori and I have felt from people across our lives. It's come old school via letters and the providing of home-cooked meals, and it's come new school via texts and Door Dash gift cards. It's come via 500 donations to Teddy's fund at The Columbus Foundation, and it's come via many other other unexpected acts of kindness to help us celebrate and elevate Teddy.
Several of our friends, for example, have taken to heart a request I made for people to plant asters and other pollinators rather than mums this fall, to draw butterflies to their yard as a way to remember Teddy. (He absolutely loved being outside, being in nature, and had a particular affinity for the butterflies and birds and other wildlife that would visit him in our yard, or that he would visit in our city's parks.)
With delight, so many friends have--one even went so far as to create garden signs that say "Teddy's Asters" on them.
Other friends, the Vaziris, customized a longstanding fundraiser into an event in Teddy's honor. At the end of this month, "Boo-ckeyes at the Barn" will direct its revenues toward enhancing the patient and family experience at the pulmonary ICU at Nationwide Children's Hospital, a place where we spent too much time the last few years as we navigated Teddy's asthma.
And another friend, the benevolent leader of Columbus Metropolitan Library, sent us a special birthday gift for Teddy. Five books were being dedicated to him, including two of his absolute favorites: Nighty Night by Leslie Patricelli and Your Truck by Jon Klassen. “Teddy’s name is inside each one, and children and families will check them out and read them at bedtime for years to come," she wrote to us. "We want Teddy to be remembered here in a place he loved.”
One of the places he loved is wherever dogs were. We would sometimes sit outside and wait for dogs to come by, so he could go say hello--and give them a hug. Our curmudgeonly schnauzer had passed away in October, and our plan had been to bring a new rescue dog home this fall, once we'd built a fence in our backyard.
Well, for the last week, we have been welcoming Phoenix, a 60-pound doodle mix, into our family. She is just what the doctor ordered.
And taking her for daily walks--and even having to hoist her up into my ride's car a few times--has proven to be an exceptional addition to my physical therapy. She stops and starts to smell something or potty every 12 seconds, which has put a damper in my jogging ambitions. But in every other way, she has been an enormously welcome addition to our lives.
On Monday, she sprawled out in the grass while I engaged in some gardening therapy--I had to either plant or transplant several native flowers and trees before the first freeze arrives this Saturday. Delightfully, we have some frost asters that began growing unexpectedly around our backyard; I pulled them all out, under Phoenix's supervision, and bundled them together at the entrance of our house.
Mercifully, little doses of normalcy and less and less newsworthy to me, as my stamina grows and my strength finds its way back, too.
Another big step back is forthcoming: Next week, I have a driving test. If I pass, and if I can pick the right electric car--an appellation that I hope is redundant someday--I can have a little more independence and a little more normalcy to look forward to. Much as getting behind the wheel again frightened me at first, I'm ready now.
These consequences of therapy are very welcome.
Another big step I overcome, despite some anxiety, this past weekend. My graduating class at Columbus Academy celebrated its 25th reunion, and one of my most beloved teachers celebrated his retirement after more than 40 years of superlative service to the school. He was generous enough to ask me to speak on behalf of all his former students, alongside a former colleague, a former classmate, and two of his sons.
I hadn't spoken publicly since the accident, and haven't really been around a big group of people since either. It helps being in rooms where you can trust those who will be there, that they'll take care of you and not judge you, and will embrace you with affection and the right dose of normalcy to make transitory moments like these more possible.
Someone asked me afterward, how it has felt as I reenter the world, so to speak.
I can't help but think of The Big Fish, a movie that always resonated with me because, fundamentally, it's about a son and his dying father.
At the end of the film, a man who had lived a full and adventurous life is on his deathbed. And his son is there with him. And he asks his son to tell him how he dies.
So he answers: At the end, everyone who’s loved him over the course of his life is there, so happy to see him and cheer and wave and blow kisses. And to say farewell.
It’s how much of the last two months have felt for me. People from across my life have found a way to be there for me or my family, or just to reach out and say hello.
But it’s been a welcome back into life, not death.
I'm so grateful to still be here, disbelieve it though i still do some mornings.
I’m so sad that Teddy isn’t still here too in all the ways we want. Or my father.
But with my second chance here, I'm going to do all I can to keep them alive. All I can to be who the father, and husband, and son, and friend that I want to be. All I can to write my way through 2026 and work my way toward a world that is far more just and hopeful than the one it is today.
The world we shielded from our boys until they were ready to make it beautiful, as my friend Maggie Smith has written.
Or more crassly, to paraphrase another piece of art--the film, Major League, as feels appropriate as the Guardians continue their World Series journey--there's only one thing left to do.
Win the whole fuckin' thing.
