Category: Rowan

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Finally Gonna See The Boss

This photo of me and Rowan was taken when we were still living in Ogden, about 15 years ago. We were both growing out our hair, which we eventually chopped off and donated to Locks of Love—to be made into wigs for kids with cancer who’ve lost their hair because of chemo treatments. I re-post the pictures because I have always referred to them as “my Bruce pics with Rowan” since they’re vaguely reminiscent of the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s album, BORN IN THE USA.In less than a week, Suzanne and I will be belted in our seats on a plane headed to Portland, OR. We are going there so I can finally see my longtime songwriter-throb, Bruce Springsteen, in concert. His band, The E Street Band, will be backing him, too, minus The Big Man, the late Clarence Clemons—whose masterfully played saxophone made the 14-year-old me hold my breath more than once when I first listened to the BORN TO RUN cassette tape I found abandoned in the kitchen junk drawer of my kidhood. As far as concerts go, I have seen them all. At least, all the bands I’ve wanted to see—except Bruce. When we are in Portland, that will finally change. In terms of music, my unofficial Concert Bucket List will be completed. Oh, I certainly won’t be done attending concerts. There just won’t be any more music artists I’ve gotta see in concert so I can die in peace—with my life’s spectacular soundtrack stuck in my head.💿

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Rowan’s Belated Birthday Brunch

Although Rowan’s 25th birthday was weeks ago, in August, everybody’s schedules were such that we couldn’t find a time to get together with him for a celebratory brunch, until two Sundays ago. Suzanne and I finally met up with Rowan and his flame, Cameryn, at Finn’s Cafe in Sugarhouse—where we wore the birthday party hats for a total of maybe 90 seconds, so I could snap TIE O’ THE DAY photos. Suzanne, Rowan, and Cameryn are always good to indulge me in my TO’TD efforts. For the festive occasion, I did not choose to wear my birthday balloons bow tie, as I often do for birthdays. Instead, I went with the wood, puzzle piece TIE O’ THE DAY, which is fun, but it was also more in keeping with my inner mood of that day. I was trying to fit together some big answers to a big puzzle: how could Oakley be gone?

You see, I knew that near the end of this previously scheduled brunch celebration in honor of Rowan, it would be my job to relate to him the news about Oakley’s death. Suzanne and I had been with her in the hospital room as she passed away just the night before. Rowan and Oakley spent a lot of time around each other when they were younger, despite a seven-year age difference. Since it had been a few years since Rowan and Oakley had seen each other, I did not anticipate the news would hit Rowan as hard as it did. As a parent, I hurt for him as he teared up and struggled to process the unbelievably terrible information. As a parent, I was also proud of him that he had grown into the kind of person who still carried a tiny cousin named Oakley in his heart, despite how much time had passed since they hung out together. I am now certain he will carry his love for her—and for all “the kids” in his Delta family—with him throughout his entire life. I could see Rowan is beginning to understand the magnitude of the loss of even one person in a family. He is wrestling with the loss of our incredible Oakley, who will not live an adulthood, as he has the opportunity to do. Rowan was moved enough to feel both honored and obliged to say a few words at her graveside. Our Rowan was a grown man in his grief. As such, he is trying to put together the pieces of the existential puzzle—as are we all.

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Everything Left To Say

Suzanne, Rowan, and I spent most of Saturday in Delta for Oakley’s funeral and burial. We ended our day there with a visit with Mom. Mom had been able to attend the funeral, but was glad to be back home at the care center. (I will write more about our visit with Mom in another post.) In honor of Oakley, I tried to pack as much purple into my wardrobe as I could, including Bow Tie o’ the Day. Even my socks and shoelaces were purple. When I commit, I am true.

I’m taking a deep breath this morning. Oakley was privately and publicly honored over the weekend, and then her body was laid to rest near family. Last week was a constant shock—of loss, and breakdown, and gutting through every moment. I can only speak for how it seemed to me, but it felt like, from one minute to the next, family and friends were alternating between being supportive to each other and being supported by each other. Now, we are supposed to get back to normal. We are supposed to go back to business as usual. But the thing about the idea of “normal” is that there is no such thing. There never was. Things are always changing, always in flux. Movement in time and space is the way all of this works. Change is the constant. Last week, in barren grief, time seemed to stop for our family. But we were the ones standing still. We stood as witnesses to Oakley’s earthly dance, and we applauded her as she entered into the eternal present she now inhabits. Today, we are again tasked with finding our momentum. We are left to choreograph our own dances. We are left to interpret the moves Oakley taught us while she was with us. I will tell you this: If you did not learn something about life’s dancing from our Oakley, it’s only because you didn’t know her.

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Cartoon Oakley

As a kid, Rowan was always drawing. He carried around a clipboard in case he got an idea for a masterpiece. At some point, he drew cartoon versions of select people. Oakley was one of his subjects. When Rowan first showed me this cartoon drawing, he asked if I knew who it was. Let’s see what the drawing “says”: Goofy? Check. Dancing? Check. Rowdy? Check. Impeccably attired? Check. Bouncy as all get-out? Check. Rowan captured all the defining traits. I knew immediately that it was the famous Oakley Jane Shiner. When I showed the drawing to Suzanne and asked her if she could tell who it was, she didn’t have to ponder who it might be. “It’s Oakley!” Oakley was a party.

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Rowan and Oakley At Our Tumbleweed Ranch

Oakley, Bosten, Rowan, and the Whoopie cushion.
Oakley and Rowan build things.
Rowan and Oakley eat a feast at Mom’s.
Rowan and Oakley graze at Grandma Helen’s.
Oakley checks out Roxy’s fat belly.

Although we lived primarily “up north” until 2017, we also had the house next door to Mom and Dad in Delta. We called it The Desert Beach House. We spent almost every holiday and school break there. Rowan and I spent most of each summer there, and Suzanne would join us for a couple of weeks when work allowed. Suzanne spent most of her time in Delta sleeping and sewing. Rowan spent a lot of his Delta time hanging around with whatever configuration of “the kids” was over at Mom’s. He watched them grow up, even as he grew up himself. They all got along, but as I look back, I think Oakley and Bosten seemed to find themselves trailing Rowan around most often. In the first photo here, you see the three of them in Rowan’s room filling up a Whoopie cushion which they would later place on Mom’s chair on the porch. Mom was a good sport when she sat on on it. She played up her surprise dramatically as she slowly sat down on it, making the fart sounds last an inordinately lengthy time. The kids found ways to slip it under her over and over throughout the day. Mom played along long past her patience with the trick had worn thing. They all enjoyed the Whoopie cushion, but Mom wasn’t upset when Rowan and the kids, for some reason, couldn’t find where I accidentally on purpose lost it for a while.

One day when Oakley was maybe 3 or 4, Rowan and a bunch of the kids had been playing outside between the two yards, when he came into our house and sat down with great exaggeration and accompanying loud sighs of frustration. I asked him what was wrong. He blurted out, “I had to get away!” He continued, “Oakley won’t quit talking! Why does Oakley ask so many questions?” I knew exactly what he meant. But I laughed, because talking incessantly and asking question after question about everything, from morning until night—well, that was a trait Rowan and Oakley shared. Rowan was the talkative pot calling the kettle chatty. I am grateful I had the chance to be the audience for their verbal conversation marathons for so many years.

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The Business Side O’ Living

We use infrastructure like bridges and roads and water pipes daily, and we usually do it without giving these things a second thought. We just expect these things to work effectively and safely, whenever we need to use them. Of course, infrastructure needs continual planning and vigilant maintenance, which is what allows us to not have to think about it. We’re kind of spoiled like that, as we should be. If we approach a bridge while we are driving, we are generally safe to assume it’s not going to come crashing down if we drive across it. There are people whose job it is to look out for us when it comes to stuff we routinely use. If everybody does their job correctly, things go smoothly and we don’t even notice.

Likewise, there’s plenty of metaphorical infrastructure to plan and take care of as we go about our lives. We have to make plans for “in case” or “when”—as in, “in case one of us has to go to a care center,” or “when one of us dies.” Yes, we spent the afternoon meeting with an attorney to do our estate planning. It’s not a glamorous task, but it is a kind of infrastructure that needs to be set up to make sure your money and material things do what you need them to do, as well as what you want them to do. (We even signed up our dead bodies to go to the University of Utah for research.) I don’t want relatives fighting over who gets my ties and bow ties. And Suzanne doesn’t want anyone arguing over who gets her towering stacks o’ fabric. We certainly don’t want to leave all the decisions for Rowan to manage, so we’ll make the decisions and get them all in writing. If we’ve planned the documents correctly, when we die things will go so smoothly that nobody will even know we’re gone. 🤡 ⚰️ ⚰️

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I’m A Zombie Now

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I just returned home from 6 hours of escorting Rowan from his apartment to his dentist, and back to his apartment again. He had his teeth cleaned and 2 cavities filled. It was a long day. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing more mind-numbing than a trip to the dentist is somebody else’s trip to the dentist. I am nearly comatose. But I did want to check in today and say “howdy” to y’all. 😩

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Merry Birthday, Rowan!

As you have probably figured out, my comic book-design shirt is my fave-rave this summer, which is why it’s regularly showing up on TIE O’ THE DAY. I suppose I should refer to it as my Shirt o’ the Summer o’ 2021. I wore it again yesterday, when I chose to don my wood guitar Bow Tie o’ the Day in honor of Rowan’s 24th birthday. Rowan is a guitar aficionado and player. For his birthday, we took him and his flame, Cameryn, to brunch in SLC at the Copper Onion. We had a lively time on the patio, much to the amusement of the strangers dining around us. Our animated conversation made an entertaining floorshow for our fellow diners.

When I stood up to take this photograph, Suzanne said, “Get the waiter to take it of all four of us. Nobody wants to see your big bald head in the middle of the photo.” But I put my bigly bald head front-and-center anyway, and took the snapshot myself. When we got home and I finally looked at the picture, I realized Suzanne had probably been right, as per usual. But trust me—I’m not losing any sleep over it. 🤡

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Throwback Thursday

This showed up on my Wayback Machine Photo Feed today. Here’s our baby-man Rowan, wearing a formal Bow Tie o’ the Day for his prom, in May of 2015. I cannot believe he will be 24 in August. I guarantee you that as well as Rowan filled out the tux-and-bow-tie at his prom back in the day of these photos, he would fill it out even better as the manly man he is now. He has definitely grown. I taught him how to sport neckwear, at least.