The Medic Dad Chronicles

Since my dad died, there have been several occasions in which I have wanted to call and tell him things. I think most everyone who has lost a parent is in that boat. I thought back to times when I did call dad and wrote them down. Enjoy What if she is the one?  I remember calling Dad one time when I was 18 years old and home on leave from the Army. I had met a girl. I had stopped at the western store, Sheplers, in Denver, and met a beautiful girl who worked there. Being young, confident, and fresh out of Army basic training, I got her number, and we went out a few times. Then my buddy, Pete, told me he knew her. Unfortunately, the information he shared did not exactly calm my nerves. I was young, naive, and completely out of my depth. So I called Dad. Somehow, we ended up sitting in a car around ten o'clock at night, talking about this girl and what I should do.  I remember telling him how I felt. I remember telling him what I believed. And I remember telling him that I had ne...

  Therapy and meds I think a lot of men struggle with the idea of therapy and/or medication because there is still a stigma attached to both of them. Some men hear the word therapy and immediately think it means weakness. Like you are broken, unstable, or unable to handle your own life. Much of that stems from how therapy has been portrayed over the years. The media made it seem goofy or awkward. You picture somebody lying on a couch, talking about their childhood, while a therapist takes notes in silence. The reality is that therapy today can look completely different than that. Some therapy is done in person. Some is done online through video chat from your own house. Some is one-on-one. Some is group therapy. Some therapists are very direct, while others are more conversational. There are many different approaches and personalities out there. I have had several therapists myself. I liked all of them, but there was one that I had a harder time connecting with because our personal...

  Is This Where I Get Off the Ride? I think a lot of people eventually reach a point in life where they stop, look around, and realize they have spent most of their years doing what they had to do rather than what they truly wanted to do. Work. Bills. Stress. Responsibility. Survival. And somewhere along the way, life quietly turns into routine. Wake up. Go to work. Pay bills. Handle problems. Go to sleep(if you are lucky). Repeat. Years go by before you finally stop long enough to ask yourself: “Is this really how I want the rest of my life to look?” I think that is where I am now. Not in a hopeless way. Not in a “give up on life” way. More like standing at a crossroads and realizing I do not want to spend the rest of my years only surviving anymore. I have spent most of my life trying to take care of responsibilities, provide for my family, fix problems, and keep things afloat. And I do not regret doing those things. That is part of being a husband, a father, and a man. But I als...

  The Realization My wife and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2(I haven't even seen the first one) the other night, and there was a scene that stuck with me afterward. Meryl Streep’s character was reflecting on her life, her career, and all the things she had missed because of it. The success. The sacrifices. The relationships. The time that never comes back. And honestly, it hit me a lot harder than I expected. It got me thinking about my own life. The years spent working. The missed moments. The family dinners, conversations, vacations, and little memories that probably seemed small at the time but meant everything in hindsight. The times I was physically present somewhere but mentally still stuck at work, stressed about money, exhausted, distracted, or just trying to survive life. I started thinking about how many years I spent believing that if I just worked harder, sacrificed more, pushed through a little longer, or made a little more money, eventually life would slow dow...

  The Moment It Hit Me I think one of the hardest parts about getting older is realizing how much clearer life looks in hindsight. There are things I missed because I was working too much. Things I missed because I was exhausted. Things I missed because I was mentally buried under stress, bills, work, survival, and just trying to keep moving forward. I think as parents, especially fathers, we convince ourselves that if we are working hard, providing, showing up when we can, and doing our best to hold everything together, then we are doing what we are supposed to do. And maybe we are. But hindsight has a way of showing you the moments you wish you had slowed down more for. The conversations you wish you had paid more attention to. The times you wish you had asked more questions, listened more carefully, or simply been more present emotionally instead of just physically. One moment still sticks with me more than most. My son had just finished baseball season and gotten his trophy. I ...

  The Things You Don’t Get Back When my kids were younger, I was working two full-time jobs. I worked on helicopters during the day and worked on the ambulance at night. To say I was tired would be an understatement. So, on the weekend when I was getting my kids, I would work Wednesday day, Wednesday night, Thursday day, Thursday night, then Friday day. Straight through. Any sleep I got was whatever I could catch at night between calls or in little cat naps during the day. Those Fridays(after they moved to Jacksonville) meant driving over an hour one way just to get them. If they had a sporting event, it could easily mean a two-hour drive one way just to get there. I remember the kids asking me all the time, “Why are you always so tired?” I wasn't sure how to explain it to them. How do you explain to kids that you are running on almost no sleep, working yourself into the ground, trying to pay bills, trying to stay involved in their lives, trying to keep everything afloat, and still...