Welcome Lilly!

Gina and I are an aunt and uncle again! Lilly Eleanor Hoffman made her world debut at 7:50 p.m. today. She’s 7 pounds, 14 1/2 ounces and 20 1/2 inches of cuteness. Congrats to my baby sister Sue and the proud papa, Randy. We love you guys and our new niece! Ryan hereby passes on the title of youngest grandchild.

That’s Doctor Jenny to you

Congratulations to my sister Jenny, who passed her final medical boards! I knew you could do it! Now I can keep those consultation calls coming. . .

Fun with Han and Sue

Two years after I graduated from college, it was time to get my own place. My best friend James and I split the rent on a two-bedroom apartment, and with only a few pieces of used furniture between us there was a lot of upfront expense. So when it came time to stocking the kitchen, I was on a budget. 

I invited my sisters Anna and Sue to come over the night I moved in, and we headed for the grocery store across the street from my complex. I instructed them I had a hundred and twenty dollars to spend at the store, and they had to help me make sure that I didn’t go over it.

This was back in the day when people still did math in their head (the horror!), so as I placed each item in the cart we announced our running total. We had a blast going up and down the aisles deciding what I needed. (Spices were a major whammy. I didn’t have any of those.) And when we checked out, we were within a dollar of the $120 limit. “Woo-hoos!” and high-fives all around. We arranged the kitchen, then amused ourselves further by washing a lone spoon in my dishwasher.

Han and Suzie hung out a lot with me back in the apartment days. They helped me put up my Christmas tree. We took trips to the nearby park. Those were fun times at a period when I needed some company, and I miss the goofy quality time with my two youngest sibs.

So happy birthday, Han! That was the best grocery store trip ever.

Mrs. Franklin and the mountain of leaves

This was the first year I had to rake leaves in our yard. We’re in a neighborhood where the trees are only 10 years old, so it took a while for them to mature enough to make raking a must. So while grilling dinner, I broke the rake out and kicked the leaves to the curb.

That got me thinking about my brother Andy and Mrs. Franklin’s yard. Mrs. Franklin lived on a double lot, with her house on one side and an empty lot next to it. Her property was covered with huge, mature trees, and the leaves would be several layers think by the middle of the fall. So once a year she payed Andy and I to rake and bag them for her. 

We spent a whole weekend clearing those leaves. We worked like dogs. But she paid us each 30 bucks, which back then was a big deal. So we spent the weekend on our hands and knees, stuffing those bags to the gills. We only saw Mrs. Franklin at the very end, when she gave us the big payout. Other than that, she hid in her house and left the leaf bags on her doorstep. 

Andy and I used to look forward to and dread that weekend each year. We wanted the extra cash, but knew we were in for some backbreaking work. At the same time, we felt a huge feeling of accomplishment when we finished the job. There’s something to be said for a hard day’s work. Andy and I earned every cent.

Now instead of bagging leaves you rake them to the curb. You just leave them there and wait for the leaf sucker-upper to take them away. I’m sure Andy and I would have been all over that in the Mrs. Franklin days. But a part of me thinks, that’s cheating.

My baby sister

Jenny, me and Sue, 2001

I was 14 when my parents told me my baby sister was sick. Suzie was literally a baby then, only two years old. They told us kids she had leukemia, and I had to look the word up. I didn’t understand much of what I read except that it meant Sue had cancer.

Sue had six weeks of intense chemotherapy and oral medication after that. Mom and Dad spent a lot of time shuttling her to Chicago for her treatment (I can attest that the Ronald McDonald house is a very worthy cause.) She had multiple, painful spinal taps. She had blood drawn all the time. At one point her counts were so low the doctors wanted to remove her spleen. Mom and Dad blessed Suzie with holy water, and Sue’s counts shot up right before she was scheduled to have the operation. You can call that a coincidence, I suppose. I call it a miracle.

Sue understood how hard her illness was on Mom and Dad. When she was three she decided she wouldn’t cry anymore when the doctors took her blood. That’s more character as a child than some people show as adults. The worst of it was over by the time that Sue was four and a half. She received clean bills of health every year after that until she was released at 18.

Sue’s 28 today and you wouldn’t know she was so sick. It’s overwhelming to think of what she, and Mom and Dad, went through. I was young at the time, and Mom and Dad were heroic at shielding the rest of us, but I’ve thought a lot about it since. I’m an emotional guy, but few things get me going like thinking about those times, and what a remarkable person Sue is, and how grateful I am that she’s here.

I love you, baby sister. You’re one of my favorite miracles.

Here’s something about Mary

My oldest sibling Mary went to college in Minnesota. Wooed by their beastly winters and 10,000 lakes, she decided to stay there. Though she retained her Hoosier accent, she lost her ability to cook. Except for Sloppy Joes, which she made for any of us who visited. Every time we visited. Thankfully she married a local boy, Mike, who’s deadly with a grill and expanded her culinary repertoire beyond ground beef and Manwich sauce.

Mary was guilty of a number of childhood affronts. She subjected us to the musical stylings of Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett. She took way more time getting ready for school than any of us three boys did. And she hid my Captain Marvel action figure and forgot that she had for a year. But I still miss her and wish that she and her family weren’t seven hours away.

Happy birthday, sis. If you were here, I’d make you a Sloppy Joe dinner.

Jenny and the teleport chamber

The house I grew up in in Griffith had a magical spot on the second floor that let you teleport. At least, that was what we were able to convince my sister Jenny.

The “we” in question were me, my brother Andy and my friend James. Andy and I often butted heads with Jenny back in those days, when Andy and I were in middle school and Jenny was around nine or ten. This was partly because, as I recall it, Jenny was a bit of a brat, but also due to the fact that, though she had a sister in Mary, the oldest, she also had the misfortune of being born after a string of three boys. 

There was a square of hallway on the second floor of our house that was enclosed by doors on three sides and a wall on the fourth. James and I, somewhere along the line, concocted a tall tale about it. With Andy roped in, we told Jenny that if someone stood on that patch of hallway and let themselves be boxed in, they would magically find themselves transported to the same spot on the first floor.

To prove it, we had James volunteer to be the guinea pig. The “teleport chamber” was framed by a bathroom and Jenny and the boys’ bedrooms. We had Jenny go in the bathroom and close her door from the inside, while Andy and I manned the bedroom doors and shut James in. Naturally, one of us devious brothers let James out through our side, and when Jenny ran down the stairs from the second floor bathroom, sure enough, there James was.

Enticed and amazed, Jenny would inevitably volunteer to go next. James took her spot manning the bathroom door, and we shut Jenny in. Only this time there was no brother who let her out of the pitch black hole. My memory is conveniently spotty here, but I imagine we finally let Jenny out when she started to cry or bang on the doors. We would then shrug our shoulders as to why the teleport chamber had failed, offering the theory that it only worked on boys.

We pulled this cruel hoax on Jenny a number of times. I have to think that after the first few occasions Jenny was just playing along, sucking it up for the rare chance to play with two of her older brothers. Boys may be boys, but it was one of the meanest things I remember doing as a kid.

Dr. Jenny grew up to be an accomplished, beautiful woman, and one of, if not the, most happy people that I know. On her birthday, I would just like to say I’m glad we didn’t scar you with that whole bogus-teleport thing, and that I love you and I’m proud of you.

And that it was James’ idea.

Sibling fever

My sister Mary and her three kids were over for dinner tonight, and her youngest, Maggie, spent the evening violating Ryan’s personal space. In no time flat Maggie was proclaiming her desire for a younger sibling, and as they were leaving she asked to borrow the baby and bring him back tomorrow. She’s going to be one disappointed seven-year-old.

Good luck with that one, sis.

The things we can’t explain

Mom called last night with the news that Suzie lost the baby.

Gina and I had a scare early on when she was expecting Ryan. Gina was spotting bad enough that we both assumed the worst. I remember sitting in our OB’s office waiting for the doctor in tears. When we were told that the baby was fine, mixed in with the gratitude and relief was the thought that losing a baby has to be the saddest thing in the world.

My sisters Mary and Jenny and my sister-in-law Brandi all suffered miscarriages. I was upset for each one of them, but now that we have Ryan I took Suzie’s news particularly hard. Losing a baby is hard to reconcile with the idea that God has a plan, but all we can do is trust that His wishes will be revealed in the fullness of time. Just as Mary, Jenny and Brandi were all blessed with children after their loss, Gina and I are confident that Sue and Randy will be, too.

As Suzie’s big brother I still feel compelled to protect my baby sis. Unfortunately there are some things in life I cannot defend her from. Suzie, know that we love you and everything’s going to be okay. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and Randy, and we look forward to the day you call with happy, blessed news.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” — Luke 18:16

My baby brother

Me and Andy after I shaved my far more handsome head

Five years ago, my younger brother Andy said he had testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and abdomen. We were in my sister Suzie’s dorm room, just the Moose brothers and Sue, and I never expected to hear that news on an otherwise ordinary day. Andy was at peace with it, almost supernaturally so, but Joe, Sue and I had no idea this was coming.

Nothing’s as much of a punch in the gut as hearing the word cancer. Even though Suzie was a survivor, so we knew Andy could fight it, it was still frighteningly arbitrary that my baby brother was sick. He didn’t do anything more to “deserve” it than Suzie did when she was two, and all the rest of us could do was pray and offer our support.

It often pours when it rains, and Andy was having a run of bad luck. Around the same time he was diagnosed, he found mold in his upstairs bedroom. The entire second floor of his home had to be gutted. Luckily, our brother-in-law Mike is a construction foreman, and he graciously took a few days off to supervise the project. He, Joe and I managed to refinish the upstairs in the course of a week, replacing crossbeams and all of the moldy insulation and drywall. Andy slept in his kitchen for the duration of the second floor’s repair.

I decided to show my support for Andy by shaving my head. I figured he could use some solidarity once chemo took its toll. Andy, never one to miss an opportunity to talk trash, thanked me by taking a picture of himself with a sign by his newly bald head. The sign had arrows pointed to every bump and scar on his misshapen noggin, with a clearly deluded explanation of how each one got there. “Matt made me hang on the banister until it came off the wall,” one said. “Matt threw my Cubs hat out of the tree house and made me jump after it.” When I claimed such instances only pointed out Andy’s reckless stupidity, he fell back on his timeless defense: “You were older and should have known better.”

I have to say there was never a time when I thought he wouldn’t make it. (Ironically, he was almost done in by one of his medications. Andy had such a severe allergic reaction his chest and throat closed up.) I was spared the daily realities that Brandi and the kids lived through, his fainting spells in the bathroom and the ravages of chemotherapy. But call it a feeling or call it faith, I knew Andy would be okay. Maybe it’s from all the times I saw just what a thick skull he has.

It’s Andy’s birthday this weekend. He’s completely cancer-free. In the meantime, our friend Mark has been diagnosed with bone cancer. I think back to the time when Andy was sick, and how sad and scary that felt, and I wish Mark and his wife Diane will share Andy’s faith and health.

Happy birthday, baby brother.

Now about those bumps on your head . . .