When Faith Died

The week before Easter, I was talking with acquaintances at my son’s lacrosse game. When asked if I was going to church on the holiday, I fumbled as did not know what to say. The answer was no, and the moment of awkwardness did not pass quickly. They could not know that my struggle with faith was more germane at present than ever before.

When my father was alive, I could refer to him and say that he had enough devotion for his entire family. We attended mass when we visited him, or when he came to our home for the weekend I took him to our parish. When he died, those opportunities vanished, and so did my connection to the church.

Seasons Of Living

This is the first Christmas season without my mother and father and it has hit me hard. Granted, I am a middle aged man with a family, and there are those who have suffered greater losses while much younger. Still, my children miss them very much, and their passing left a big hole in our lives. Also, not having parents leaves me at the top of the family tree along with my brothers and sisters. I’m too young for that, I think.

My nieces and nephews are either in college or getting ready to go. My daughter is in high school and we are already picking out universities from websites and catalogs. My son will be entering middle school next September, and I feel like life is sailing past me rapidly. I’m in my forties, sliding down the back end of the hill. There’s nothing but gray hair and an A.A.R.P. membership in my future. I’m not unhappy, but I have a vague sense that I lack accomplishment.

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Public Relations & You

I’ve been asked by a professor at the college where I am employed to deliver a lecture on public relations. My speech is tailored to the young, inexperienced, undergraduates in her class. The main theme will focus on how the demeanor and appearance of job seekers influences potential employers.

In my other professional life, I am managing editor for fiction for an international literary magazine. In that role I get to read some well written stories. In many cases, however, I must turn writers down in short order. My duty is to accept only the best a writer has to offer which complements the style accepted by the periodical I work for. I am intolerant towards authors who submit poorly written query letters which do not provide a plot summary or begin with a salutation. Many of the e-mails I receive are composed like text messages and expose the authors as incompetent writers. This brings me to my earlier ideas on public relations.

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A Learning Moment

“Do you want to know what the President did today?” I asked my ten year old son. He wasn’t paying attention as he was playing Nintendo. With my laptop on, I scrolled through news websites with the TV on in the background.

He came over to see what I was talking about. There was a picture on the Drudge Report of President Obama, Vice President Biden, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley. This was the scene which the President hoped for, a “teaching moment.”

My son asked me what I was talking about and I showed him the photo. I then explained about the arrest of Professor Gates and the misunderstanding about race, and why it became important for President Obama to preside over this meeting. My son sensed that this was a significant story. He nodded his head and listened as I spoke. “He’s doing a good thing, he’s a nice president” he said. He paused over the laptop a moment longer and I patted him on the back.

As a former New York City police officer, I can closely relate to Sgt. Crowley and his handling of the burglary investigation. I’ve never been accused of racial profiling in my career; yet, I can detail incidents where bystanders expressed antipathy towards the white officers present at the scene. Upon reading the report of the incident at Professors Gates’ home, my reaction was to side with Sgt. Crowley.

Phone Envy

My wireless carrier offered me a brand new phone if I added another line. So far, there are three names on our account: my wife, my fourteen year old daughter, and of course, me. Our daughter was the first to chime in on the topic.

She reasoned that my son, who is going into the fifth grade “needs” a phone so he can text his friends (who each have one) and call us when he want to be picked up from a play date. Our carrier would send our son the latest and greatest which technology has to offer; and, I can’t see why he would require such a gadget. I get by with my standard-issue flip phone. Why does he have to own a cell phone with a keyboard and movie camera?

The Business of Men

Mr. Hoyt’s truck overflowed with the stock of his trade: car parts of all types, tires, and, occasionally, kitchen appliances. He’d park his large, creaky vehicle across the street from our home, by Mr. Lowman’s house. It was one of many stops he’d make in the course of a day to sell his goods.

Mr. Lowman was a mechanic who relied upon Mr. Hoyt to supply him with the components he needed to run a part-time auto repair business from his garage. We lived in a blue-collar neighborhood, and it was necessary for people to work more than one job in order to make ends meet. My dad was no exception.

As a boy of maybe five or six, I’d watch Mr. Hoyt amble across the street to our home to meet with my dad, leaving his sons to tend to the business of unloading tires and other items. Dad would greet him at our front door and invite him inside to discuss their particular deals over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. During the holidays, they’d sip whiskey in the dining room like gentlemen, as they would not drink in front of my mother.

My dad was an oil-burner mechanic. Mr. Hoyt, being the type of businessman he was, knew folks who needed work done and found people to do the work for them. He could rely on my father to answer his phone in the middle of the night and then run out to fix an ailing boiler during the cold winter months. I am still not sure what the arrangement between the two of them was, but my father was happy to greet him, and Mr. Hoyt always walked away with a smile and an envelope.

There was nothing peculiar about a grown man providing products and services to the mechanics and utility men of my neighborhood. However, the era of my childhood was the 1960s, and Mr. Hoyt was African American. One needs to remember that these were the years when the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading peaceful marches across the South and, ultimately, in Washington, D.C., for civil rights. In the meantime, Mr. Hoyt drove his panel truck across town and through neighborhoods where he was not able to buy a home in order to provide for his family.

He was a fixture in our lives until I entered high school and my dad found another line of work that was more lucrative and did not require him to break his back. Mr. Hoyt still visited his other client across the street from us. In his later years, his beard turned white and his body became slightly stooped, as he was a lot older than the men he supplied with both parts and work. By then, his sons did most of the driving and heavy lifting, and my dad still invited him inside for coffee when he came around.

In my early childhood, he was the only Black man I knew personally. Yet, as welcome as he was in our home and Mr. Lowman’s, others were not as tolerant.

A man named Slater, who once lived in the house next to Mr. Lowman, originally hailed from Kentucky, and he was fond of displaying a large Confederate flag on his front porch. Mr. Hoyt often parked his truck in front of Slater’s residence, and he had to endure the malevolent Civil War banner staring him in the face. Mr. Slater would then scurry next door upon seeing him arrive in order to purchase wares from him, too. That type of ignorance is too baffling to comprehend.

Mr. Slater liked me and would often wave as I rode my bike up and down the street with my friends. One particular Fourth of July, when I was about twelve or thirteen years old, he draped his detestable Confederate flag on the wall of his porch again. I reminded him that Kentucky was a border state during the Civil War and officially remained neutral during that conflict, making his allegiance to the Confederacy both odd and gratuitous.

He didn’t wave to me as much anymore after that little history lesson. How he reconciled his bitter, racist beliefs with his genial yet inhibited relationship with Mr. Hoyt was beyond me.

I can’t remember when I stopped seeing Mr. Hoyt come around. To this day, Mr. Lowman still occasionally fixes cars for pay in his garage, but the kind gentleman and his sons are no longer the suppliers he relies on to keep his side business going.

When I was a boy, I understood the awkwardness of whites and Blacks doing business in a world of hate, mistrust, and segregation. There were the cold stares of those who drove past his truck piled high with vehicle parts, with his two teenage sons in the front seat waiting patiently for their father. The young men would look away or talk quietly while ignoring those who could not understand why my dad and our neighbor would invite a Black man into our quaint row of homes.

In the decades since those days when Mr. Hoyt took his commerce wherever he saw fit, our society has changed. It is difficult to appreciate how dramatically different it is now without having witnessed a businessman tread carefully down a suburban street simply to make a living. Yet, just a few days ago, our nation elected a man to become the next president who also happens to be African American.

I do not know where Mr. Hoyt is today or even if he is still alive. However, I believe that his sons appreciate now, more than ever, the fortitude and courage displayed by their father as he drove down boulevards and across racial divides to conduct the business of men.

-Michael J. Kannengieser

My Father, My Teacher

All which I thought I knew about my father was altered in the final days of his life. I believed, correctly so, that he was a strong, powerful man, both physically and in stature; but; I was also exposed to his profound spirituality. 

In my contemptuous, youthful days, I succumbed to the teen aged notion that I was going to live forever and that God did not exist. It was easy and convenient for me to shed the faith I had instilled in me from the time I was born. I called myself an atheist. There's a haughtiness to that belief system which is attached to the inherent and natural anger experienced by those who are pushing eighteen. Perhaps this is sparked by a fear of being nudged out of the nest into the real world, and by the anxiety which accompanies making a life for oneself which creates inner turmoil. My dismissal of God from my life also came at the same time I rebelled against my father.

He raised six of us, three boys and three girls, and he tended to our sick mother. Often he would take on another job to provide for us, making sure we had the bare essentials to get through life and to keep a roof over our heads, and regretfully, I could not appreciate his efforts.

Advice came in the form of bromides and life lessons, often learned from his own mistakes, which I fended off will the skill of a fencing champ. His instruction also came in the form of actions. He led by example, and often I lagged behind not paying much attention. Only now as a middle aged man raising my own family can I understand and appreciate his philosophies of dealing with difficult bosses, unreasonable deadlines, and the vagaries of keeping pace with and eventually surpassing ones peers. I only wish I had been a better student. 

With that said, I've gleaned much from his final hours, ones in which he suffered greatly. He faced his death with dignity. His bravery came from his strong belief in God and his unwavering conviction. His only regret was leaving his family behind, of not being a father and a grandfather anymore. 

It's not easy to become a role model. Folks often claim to be one and are not up to the task. Yet, my dad was a teacher, provider, husband, caretaker, father, grandfather, friend, and a servant of the Lord for his entire life. He enlightened his family until his last breath. Dad taught me that faith is not foolish, that love exits beyond life, and that death is not the end. 

My father has left us, he's given his last bit of counsel, but I remain his son. Hopefully, with the same grace and dignity he possessed, I can guide my own children through their lives while drawing from the deep well of sensibility and insight my father imparted to me.  God willing, I may also rediscover my faith which I retain a faint memory of from when I was a boy. Dad has shown me the way.

-Michael J. Kannengieser

A Keyboard and a Knife: Editing for Blood

Since I was a child I’ve been learning to write. With some formal education and a lot of reading and research, I’ve stumbled across lessons and maxims which have helped me shape my voice and influenced my style. Some of these items which have come my way are adages, wisdom which I can no longer attribute to a particular source. Most useful to me in my endeavors is this line: “A good novel is not what you put into it, but what you take out of it.”

My first novel was written before I heard that quotation. Back in early 1991, I had the gall to think I could write a book. Like my previous short stories, I had characters in mind, a plot, and grand ideas about how to proceed. But, a novel? That is a lot of work, I thought. As I proceeded, I typed away with reckless abandon. The result was a ninety six thousand word manuscript which received dozens of rejections from literary agents and publishers alike. The common complaint was that the “pacing” was slow. Translation: It was too long.

In retrospect, I realize that I did not edit enough. Yes, I pored over the piece for typos, grammar mistakes, and punctuation usage. Yet, I declined to remove all of the excess verbiage and unneeded paragraphs. Like a cluttered room in a tiny house, much could be eliminated. There are passages describing streets, the weather, characters that appear in brief scenes and flowery prose which do nothing to advance the story. Before sitting down to write this article, I took the bulky manuscript out of its box and felt the weight of it in my hands. Examining the enormous size of this work, I surmised that I’d need an axe to chop away the excess.

It’s too late to fix that work of fiction now. I am on to bigger and better things. A lesson I took away from that experience is that I now do much of the editing as I move along. I’ll type out a page or two on my computer and hurry back to examine the length of the section which I am creating. After a break, I read each paragraph, slowly, and then hack away with the delete key. Perhaps I act hastily at times, but I write with my gut. This has become my process of authoring and maybe one day I’ll be rewarded with the so-called success of brick and mortar publishing. Until then, I am a hacker, a steamroller of an author with a sharp scalpel in my back pocket.

Yesterday I began my fourth novel. It is a story which combines many elements of my personal life; and, I am expanding those themes into a tale of a man who reaches the pinnacle of his life while at his lowest point. Having advanced a mere two pages into this outline, blood has already begun to spill. Nouns, verbs, and whole sentences are falling to their early deaths long before anyone other than the eager author, me, has had the chance to read them and make them live. It is nasty work; heartless, cruel, and very necessary. A good novel is not just what you manage to type. It is the result of some cold blooded editing.

-Michael J. Kannengieser

Threads of Yesterday

My parents took me to the doctor for an emergency examination while I was in kindergarten. They had a sense of urgency that, at five years old, I had never seen before. Our family physician wrote a prescription and sent us home. I remember thinking nothing of it until I was spoon-fed this foul mixture, and I gagged before swallowing it. My folks also woke me in the middle of the night to give me the same elixir once more.

Youth and the fog of memory cloud one’s perspective and make the image in the rearview mirror of the mind fuzzy. I needed the medicine, yet I wasn’t sick. Back in 1968, things were a lot different from what they are today. I didn’t even have a pediatrician. But the fact remains that something had given my parents and the doctor a scare.

A young girl in my class had died of viral meningitis.

She passed away at five years old, and it still troubles me. I do not remember her name or even her face. Perhaps as I write this, there is a mother and father who pause each day to recall her laugh, gaze at her photo, and shed a tear forty years later. By now, they are elderly. Perhaps they are grandparents. Yet how could they forget her?

My life and that of the little girl crossed at one point. Though the thread connecting us was thin, there was indeed a portion of the fabric of space-time in which we shared a common patch of Earth and moved along a collective path toward maturation. Sadly, she did not make it any further.

To a greater degree, her parents traveled along that same path and stood at the edge of the plane of existence I had shared with their daughter. Is the tiny ripple of one youthful life great enough to cause a wave of emotion powerful enough to continue to intrigue a grown man?

Four decades have passed, and I still think about my late classmate. She has the effect of keeping me focused, reminding me that my life is supposed to have significance. I will explain.

My cynicism has caused me to question my life’s purpose. I’ve rejected the idea that destiny and fate have any sort of influence over me. Yet, looking back, I see how past events have led me to where I am today, and it sometimes feels like fate.

The players who’ve accompanied me on my journey thus far—including family, friends, teachers, coworkers, and some victims I’ve encountered during my years in law enforcement—have all contributed bits and snippets of truth and awareness that occur to me only when I cast off the cloak of skepticism and become open to the charms of serendipity.

I want to remember this young girl from elementary school. I can still see where she sat in class and the back of her head. With her brown hair gathered into pigtails, she sat upright during those first days of school and listened to Mrs. Sisti teach us the ABCs. Is it fair that I made it this far in life and she did not? What does it mean when a child dies? How do I justify the additional fifty-six years of life I have been fortunate enough to receive simply because I did not get sick?

My conscience cannot easily reconcile transience, the algebra of survival, and cosmic disproportion. For this reason, I am compelled to assess my endurance and make good on an unearthed vow evoked by introspection and an unadulterated scrutiny of what I deem to be providence. Why do I live? How am I so fortunate? And what is the toll for continuing along this thoroughfare—this life?

For the sake of so many who came before me, including this girl of whom I write, I will endeavor to be a good person. My goal shall be to contribute something to the rest of us. Each day, I give a bit more, I think, as I follow a new thread I’ve discovered with my eyes wide open and my mind cleared of wretched disbelief.

My children have now surpassed the young girl in age, and hopefully, God forbid, I will never mourn as her parents have. This girl, this fleeting life, still teaches, though her responsibility was never to die but to grow.

There is a photograph buried in an archive of snapshots and Polaroids at my dad’s house. Captured on paper somewhere in these collections is an image of me in kindergarten. I remember when the class portrait was taken. Her mom and dad no longer brought her to school by then, and she never hung her finger paintings in the hallway with the rest of us for open-school night.

I intend to dig that picture out of the drawer where I store memorabilia. The will is there, but not the effort. Perhaps I will find it one day when I sit back and consider my life and how I got here. Sometimes, whenever I recall everyone I have known over the years, a little girl nudges me and reminds me that she once lived and that she mattered in this world.

Her parents should know that a new filament has been cast across the dimensions between life and death, and their child continues to weave herself into the cloth of someone else’s being. I shall secure this lifeline offered to me by my classmate and keep myself grounded in the belief that I will justify my existence and fulfill my obligations.

Decades ago, a mom and dad lost their daughter. This man, once a boy in her kindergarten class, will never forget her.

Kindergarten physician viral meningitis parents space-time classmate life journey serendipity