For most of their lives my children didn’t know a website existed that chronicled a great number of the things they did and said. Upon learning of it, their...

I had a dream. In it, I was playing hide and seek with a little girl. I have the sense she was a grandchild. She had a frilly dress and thick pigtails both of which flowed behind her when she ran. Her melodic giggle bounced off the walls and brought life to the whole house. I was hiding behind a french door in the nest (where Marty and I sleep). I heard the small voice running from room to room, c...

my uncle tim died in october. this was my mom's older brother and he died nine years to the month after my mom, his sister. i always described uncle tim as my favorite uncle. at his funeral lots of people described him as their favorite fill-in-the-blank. a contributing factor to this was my uncle tim was a prankster. never malicious. never hurtful. but also never off-duty. he seemed to always hav...

50 (a 2-part essay)
PART 1: On Becoming 50

twenty years ago i had a breakdown of sorts. it kinda came out of nowhere. it was right around my 30th birthday. a year earlier my mom had given me the name and phone number of my biological mother saying she thought i was old enough to have it now. fact is, she thought i was old enough for a good while but kept waiting for me to ask about ...

growing up i remember goofing on my mom at how quickly she could get emotional at something. i have a crazy, vivid memory of a coke commercial that ran for awhile in the eighties that made her cry not just once but upon every viewing. it depicted a family adopting a little girl and then raising her, showing pivotal snippets of maturation (riding a bike, blowing out birthday candles, graduating hig...

my uncle tim had two grandpas. one was a minister and one worked the train lines.

when tim went to the minister grandpa's house as a kid, the three children in the family (tim, my mother and their sister) would sit stone-still while the adults caught up. i remember my mom telling stories about how tim, the family prankster, would try to get the girls to make noise. he would whisper funny...

"but you don't count."

that's my daughter's response, at times, to advice i give her. you know, life advice, the fatherly kind. i ask her what that means, why i don't count. she says my advice doesn't count because i love life too much, i love my job too much, i love my wife and marriage too much, i love every waking morning too much. because you like everything you're doing, nothing is w...

bella came to me while i was working at my desk, and asked me if i'd read something for her. she handed me a piece of paper that said, "Please accept this as my two-week notice and December 15th, 2017 will be my last day. Thanks! Bella."

i asked what i was looking at. bella said it was her resignation notice. i asked how she intended to deliver it. by hand? over the phone? bella said she was going to text it to her boss.

this is one of those moments as a parent where you have to catch yourself. you do this by first taking a deep breath and then, following the resultant exhalation, by saying nothing. those first things that roll across your mind's conveyer belt aren't the winners you think they are. no matter how smart or appropriate or necessary they may sound in your head. what you're looking and waiting for during this quiet breath is the realization that the only reason your child doesn't know any better or different is because you, her parent, have not yet taught them the difference. i have found in the past that i have often fumbled these moments because they come (1) frequently and (2) at inopportune times, though if you asked me when an opportune time was, it would probably take me longer to find a time to i'd call convenient than it would to just show you what i need to show you.

so here i told bella there are better ways to do this. to this she said, "but mom said it was ok". to which i said, "you showed this to mom? and she said it was good?" yep and yep. breath and silence. when dealing with spousal disconnects, there's a whole other decision tree which i will simply describe as a higher level of math and leave it at that (for now). after my breath and silence (and spousal calculus) i said "mom and i are going to have to different approaches here. while yes, you could technically send this brief message AND you could technically send it as a text and no one may bat an eye in today's white-knuckled, fast-finger society there is a better way to leave a job and this is an opportune time to practice that better way."

i talked way longer than i needed to (but this is my way and my children may worry for me if i were ever brief, so i in part do it for them). but i talked at length about the value of not burning bridges and making an impression on people, even as you are parting ways, but in short it is always about conducting yourself with class and being respectful (even when there might be angst, which was not the case here). way back when i left the bank and posted my resignation, a few people commented on it to me. so i found it (here) and shared it with bella. using that as a template she produced the following: my girl, as she so often does, did me proud. and she has already been offered on open-invitation in the summer when she will have more time and they will have more need.

one thing my mom definitely worked hard to teach me was just because lots of people in a society may deem something ok and acceptable does not mean it is ok and acceptable. texting a one-line resignation to your boss to quit your first long-term job squarely lands in that bucket for me. bella and i both thank you mom.

i woke on monday to start my week. as per usual i stepped through my morning rituals. wake. pee. weigh-in. log my thankful. log my awesome. for this day i chose an awesome i've been stepping around a bit. the awesome was "Be thankful for the life my mother provided me" and in the because section i wrote, "I learned too late how much of the goodness of my life emanated from the love my mother had for me which led to her endless support, affection, and commitment. Without her love, I would not be as strong as I am today.".

i was skirting this particular daily awesome because i knew it would carry some emotional weight and i wanted to make sure i was ready for it. hence my picking it right at the start of the week. after selecting it, i grabbed my pen and wrote the word MOM on my hand (as it part of the awesome ritual).

jump forward to the lunch-hour. i've just sat down to eat my lunch and stopped by bella's website. she posts a new post every monday and, for about a dozen reasons, i look in to see her latest offering. the title of the day's post was Love Your Mother (specific post can be seen here). i sensed trouble ahead.

i made it through bella's write up of the video she was about to share, but her words definitely primed the tanks. although i don't know that i would have ever made it through the 4:38 second video even without bella's lead in.

like the fella in the video, i too had that mom that would wait up, that wouldn't accept my adolescent distancing. and even worse than running up and down the sidelines, the first time i got hurt playing football, my mother ran onto the field. this did more to make me better than anything my coaches or teammates did as when i saw my mothers face join the circle of faces looking down at me, i forgot about any discomfort i was experiencing and started asking my mother why she was on the field.

for me, i feel like if i just had a few more years i would have woken up to how much my mother gave me. but other times i wonder if it is a lesson that can't be fully absorbed until they are gone. if that's true, it is possibly the most evil design of our world.

so for those who can still punch a string of numbers into a phone and hear the hello of a parent that cared for you, loved you, believed in you (this was another thing i shared with the gentleman in the video) then, please take a moment and attempt to acknowledge all they have given you, if only for those of us who can no longer make that call.

marty had parent teacher conferences so i was solo with the kids. whenever a parent is gone, the family drops into team effort mode. i left work early to pick up the boys. bella put the finishing touches on the dinner marty got going in the crockpot that morning.

the dinner table is also a very different affair when we're down a human. most surprisingly, conversation seems much more effo...

for those wondering about the back story with the last gallery posting, it is this.

it was the day of bella's annual save the children carnival, her third. she did her recruiting. she completed her planning. she hung her flyers. on the morning of, when we pulled into the lot where the carnival happens, there were three large construction dumpsters on the blacktop of her space, consuming more than a third of the lot and blocking the spaces reserved for half of her booths. upon seeing this i turned to her. her unblinking face was frozen in disbelief at what she was seeing. then, her face began to soften. it continued to sag until tears were seconds away. i put my hand on her knee and said it would be ok. we still had lots of space and would adjust. predictably, she said space or not it was still ruined with these giant, ugly things right in the space. her sound logic continued as she quickly adding strong observations like "who wants their children playing on a construction site" or "they're taking all the shady spots".

after stopping the car, we walked to the dumpsters to see what was in them. after climbing up and peering over the edge we were greeted by this (see photo). the carnival was on the day before father's day and that cardboard box was front and center. i nudged bella with my elbow, pointed at the box and said, "you're all good. grandma nyla has your back."

i could see bella, still rather flummoxed at the luck, dismissed my comment. as we hopped down from the dumpsters i stopped her and said: i don't know if she ever believed me or not but things did go just fine.

you may not believe me either. if so, how many people have you met in your life named nyla?

my notes from a toastmaster's talk i gave titled FAMILY MANTRAS.

while there is an endless list of stamps my mother has impressed upon me, one of the more overt examples deals in my support of children, particularly in sport. my mom came to most of my high school football games. it should be noted that i stopped playing football in the ninth grade. this put me in the stands sitting near whatever girl i was secretly obsessing over that semester. then after a pla...

another thing of note that that occurred over the break was i dreamt about my mother for the first time since her passing fifteen months ago.

in the dream we were in a college lecture hall. my boss was giving a talk. my mother was sitting with marty and kids towards the center of the room. i was off to the side, situated closer to the lectern my boss occupied. i had the sense my mom was there helping marty with the children. in some sporting event-like antic, my boss started shooting shirts into the audience. i watched the first one fly. it landed a few rows behind my mother. the first grasping hands fumbled it and the cloth orb rolled and ricocheted downward into my mother's outstretched arms. she victoriously raised the soft ball in her hand. as the crowd turned their attention back to the thrower, my mom started walking towards the stage (i guess per instruction, i wasn't paying attention) and was looking around as people congratulated her. i caught her face through the standing crowd in one of her turns and her smile was enormous. the biggest i can ever recall seeing. and she looked as bright and healthy as i can ever remember. lost in my reverie, she suddenly appeared in a chair across from me. we wordlessly sat face to face at what was more like a diner table for two. i studied her face as she happily looked about, taking in the shirt-throwing chaos that continued around us. after about a minute of me just staring i said, "your smile looks radiant." she looked directly at me and said thank you with the most warm and genuine expression imaginable. she then quietly stood and walked up the stairs disappearing into the throng of people.

upon waking, this is the only blip of that night's dreaming i remembered.

excerpt of a letter sent to my mom's best friend. i share it here for my own record and for those who inquired about the anniversary of her death.

back when bella was about four or five years old, she and alex would occasionally stay the night at my folks house. on such weekends we would meet my parents at a mcdonalds that was halfway between our homes. there was a period where bella was saying the word "god" a lot, as in "oh my god!" if surprised or wowed. this was definitely gotten from her mother as i was trained young to never play around with the lord's name, even in any of its derivative forms like gosh or lordy or jeezo and the like (from my own mother). oftentimes on the drive to meet my folks i would remind bella that grandma didn't like that word and she should say something else when visiting. my dad recently told me, through great laughter, that at one of those pickups bella excitedly ran to the table my parents were sitting at and slid into next to them. before saying hello or anything, she animatedly said:

BELLA
i know the thing i'm not supposed to say at grandma's house.

GRANDMA
oh yeah. and what's that?

BELLA
'oh my god!' because grandma doesn't like it.

this was one of my folks favorite grandkid stories to tell to any who would listen.

after my mom died, i found the below card among her things. i don't remember how old i was when i wrote it. more truthfully, i don't even remember writing it. that said, i can tell you that seeing i wrote it, and that she kept it, has spared me untold agonies. i would suggest, if you have things to say you haven't said to people you deem dear, get them said. and after you do that, keep doing it. because even though i felt infinite relief at this discovery, i still carry the regret that i needed it to remind me i said it in the first place.


click to enlarge

TRANSCRIBED BELOW

i was walking anthony to school. to get there we walk down a long, wide grass median filled with tall, mature trees. it is flanked on either side by 80 year old tile-roofed, brick homes. it is a picturesque start to my day and extra so when i'm holding hands with my bright-eyed and chatty four year old. we've travelled the route enough that anthony knows where each tree is that he can reach when r...

people have been asking how i've been doing. well, mostly, they've been asking marty how i've been doing, but some do ask me. the short answer is, all things considered, i'm holding it together surprisingly well.

i'm someone who believes what we do with our time and our lives is a choice, a choice we are able to control to significant degrees. i'm also someone who believes the thoughts possible through our minds have immense potential and something we have quite a bit of control to nurture and train. given these two beliefs, i recognize i have the power to drive myself to complete dysfunction or to embrace the fortunes that came from my time with my mother. the choice of how i direct my mind's energy is mine, and right now, days are a balancing act between those two possible extremes.

the notion i'm most struggling with is that i can't pick up a telephone, punch a series of buttons, and hear my mother's brightened hello at the sound of my voice. that there is not a phone on this planet that can make that call happen leaves me, at moments, feeling panicked, desperate and more alone than i've ever thought possible.

but when i step back and employ an ounce of empathy, my thoughts are more sorrowful for others. i feel sorrow for my mother whose life was cut far shorter than it should have been. i feel sorrow for the many children, adopted, fostered, and natural, who had bad to horrible childhood experiences in the homes they landed in. i feel sorrow for the children with ailing parents caught up in long, drawn-out scenarios that are draining and full of sadness. and i feel sorrow for my father who still after waking from a nap in his living room chair, will start talking to his wife before looking over to find her rocker empty and still.

for those who doubted i was one of the most impeccably dressed little people in whatever zip code we occupied


but it was such a infinitely small price to pay in exchange for her diligence, love, consistency, and lifelong dedication.

nyla the newlywed


nyla the new mom


and if there was a burden of being my mom's only child, it was shouldering her love of dressing me in smart and fancy outfits.
i assure you i have more photographic evidence of this, not that you'd need it, but for now, this will need to suffice.

here's a recording of me reading my mom's eulogy. i recorded myself reading it hours before the service out of fear that i wouldn't be able to get through it when the time came. for my own irrational reasons, it was important to me that my words be delivered in my voice. my intention was to ask the funeral parlor to pipe the ipod feed into the room when it was time, but i only learned minutes before the service they didn't have the ability to do this so i ended up having to read it after all.

shockingly, i made it through. i attribute this unlikely success to something marty told me. when marty's father passed two years ago, marty was the one (of the seven children) who gave the reading, the reading that they all prepared together. when i asked her how she ever made it, she said she realized if she didn't do it then, she'd never get another chance to honor her father in this way. something in the importance of this moment resonated with me. and i'd be lieing if i said, my mothers close proximity to me didn't urge me on, just as she has her entire life. i was glad this last push culminated in a show of my gratitude and infinite thanks for all she did for me.

while i'm glad i was able to deliver the words in person, i'm also glad to have this audio record that was made just hours earlier. i'm posting this here more for me than for you, but as always, you're certainly welcome to step into my world and partake.

eulogy for nyla kern (rutman) dearmitt read by her son, troy lane dearmitt october 7, 2010 13:49 / 8mb

south carolina


saturday bath


school photos


may day


atlantic city, nj


mom and brother


mamma oakley


senior picture

what follows is the eulogy i wrote for and read at the funeral service for my mother, Nyla Kern (Rutman) DeArmitt.

THE THINGS THAT MATTER
by troy dearmitt

my mom believed in two things: things that mattered and things that were right. she didn't have hobbies. she never bothered with small talk. she didn't concern herself with trifle matters. she was a woma...

my mom died on friday.

those of you who know me well have a sense for what this means for me. for all others, you may imagine what an infinitely dedicated mother might possibly mean to an only, adopted child who, in youth, had a distant and strained relationship with his father.

she passed away in the hospital of the town i grew up in. she and my father were passing through on a vacation. i arrived at the hospital an hour after she died. the last time i was in that building i was seventeen and my mom made me visit the quarterback of my high school's football team who broke his leg in a game the night before. i asked why we had to go. she said it's what friends did. when i told her this boy and i were no longer friends and hadn't been since the sixth grade, she scoffed, called it ridiculous, and never broke stride. i vividly remember how dull and vulnerable that winsome, popular boy looked in the dim hospital room, alone and unkempt, his leg unnaturally raised beneath the sheets. i don't know which of us looked more surprised to find me next to his bed with a bundle of supermarket-flowers in my damp fist. but, that was the last time i was in this building. this time i was there to say goodbye to the woman who on that day stood in the darkened wings urging her boy to do the right and proper thing.

in our last moments with my mom before the hospital staff took her away, my father, his face hovering over hers, his hands holding her cheeks, sobbingly uttered, "she only thought of others. she only thought of others." these were the last words he said to his wife of forty-five years and a truer thing has never been said of this woman who i was undeservedly fortunate to call my mom.