I signed up for the September Father Knows Best gig back in the Spring thinking it would be a nice to discuss what it’s like to be newly minted empty nesters, especially given the fact that many Citizens have young children (or at least preteens).  You know, assure everyone that there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Unfortunately since that time my life has been a huge roller coaster ride and if you forgive me, I’m going to write about that instead.  However, if you get to the end of this very long post (1,100 words plus) I do have a Father Knows Best related piece that I promise you will find interesting.

Back in May I posted in the CoC that my wife had been hospitalized and was coming home.  She has a serious lung disease and had a bad incidence of aspirating vomit, damaging her lungs even further.  Well I didn’t follow up that post to say that she went back into the hospital the very next day.  In fact in the 5 month period from mid-April to mid-September, she was hospitalized 3 months. During that time her lungs were damaged further.  To be frank we almost lost her twice and had a very scary discussion about her CO2 levels needing to improve or we would need to talk about hospice care (the levels did improve).

She’s been home since September 18^th but it’s hard.  Laying in a hospital bed for that length of time really atrophies your muscles.  Plus her right lung is barely functional.  So she is weak, woefully underweight and has to sit down to do simple things like brush her teeth.  She does seem to be getting a little stronger and hopefully can start physical therapy in the next week or so.  However my evenings are filled with being a nurse and making sure she is getting proper meds, setting up a night time ventilator, etc.  She has a wonderful cadre of friends who have been a huge help and have been a great assistance to me and given me breaks from time to time.  I couldn’t have done it without them.

So instead of enjoying empty nester life with nice dinners at trendy restaurants and spontaneous sex on the floor because there are no kids around, we are spending our time with nebulizers, ventilators, and figuring out what meds come when.  I will say one thing about my wife however, she is one tough mother.  This will eventually kill her but she is fighting it tooth and nail and instead of having 10 months to live I have no doubt that she will extend that to 10 years or more.

Now to add to the misery, I was informed in June that my job was going away.  We’ve had a wholesale change in leadership over the last 2 years and basically I wasn’t fitting in with the new direction.  Even though I’ve had 7 years of excellent performance evaluations, the “leadership” decided not to renew my contract, which meant that I would not have a job in December.

Of course given what I wrote about above, this was quite terrifying.  Our health insurance is awesome and has covered nearly all of the hundreds of thousands of dollars (that’s not an exaggeration) of medical bills. But the fact was I was miserable at my job and really saw this as an opportunity to find something new and challenging, instead of just going through the motions at my current position.

This is where the good news comes in.  I did find a new job with the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, redeveloping their old public housing units.  I used to work there prior to coming to the University and I was welcomed back with open arms.  There is also promise of moving me into a leadership position in the near future as some retirements take hold.  I start next week.  So I landed on my feet and probably improved my career prospects.

I will dearly miss working AT the University – it’s a fascinating place and it’s always fun to be around 40,000 18-22 year olds, but I won’t miss working FOR the University – there are some dumb management decisions being made and there is little the University does to help people advance their career and grow into new positions within the institution.

O.k.  You’ve gone this far and I promised a Father Knows Best piece so here it is:  About this time last year, our daughter came out to me and my wife as a lesbian.  We kind of speculated that this might be the case but she did have a long-term boyfriend in high school and was sexually active with him.  So we told ourselves that maybe she was just “experimenting.”

We’ve always been very tolerant about homosexuality (my sister is gay) but this was still tough for my daughter (to come out to us) and she was nervous about our reaction.  We accepted her but did ask if she was experimenting or perhaps bi-sexual.  She assured us that she wasn’t.  We told her that we loved her and basically said nothing’s changed with our relationship.  You could see the relief on her face and apparently had a very nice posting on Facebook about the experience.

My wife took this news a little harder than I did.  Basically she was looking forward to a traditional wedding and traditional life for her daughter and sees this as a change from that.  Also I would say our biggest concern is that even though attitudes are changing, let’s face it, there is still prejudice out there and her life will probably be tougher than someone in a similar situation as hers but who is heterosexual.  As for our relationship with our daughter?  It hasn’t changed.  She is who she is and we have the same discussions and concerns about her that we did before she came out.

Anyway here’s the FKB advice:  Your kids are their own person and they are going to strike out on their own, especially as they become teens and young adults.  You can guide them and help them along the way but in the end it’s their life whether it’s something that they are (like homosexuality) or something that they choose (like getting a tattoo of a cat on their thigh).  Your job is to offer sage, life-earned advice, help them when you can, but most importantly, love them.  We are proud of our daughter and even though her life isn’t going to down the path we envisioned, it’s her path and we are just happy she is allowing us to be there on the sidelines encouraging her along the way.

Thanks for allowing me to say all this (in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m normally not a big sharer of personal details) and thanks for reading all the way to the end.