Time Flies when you're Having a Seizure

Stuffing a Tahoe full of the Deans family and a week’s worth of belongings and then taking a road trip from North Carolina to Florida is about as crazy as trying contain a pack of rabid hyenas.  Outbursts of uninhibited rage are common and are usually followed immediately after by fits of raucous laughter. The sounds of the wild are punctuated by rare periods of eerie, suspenseful silence. 

On our most recent adventure to the Florida Keys, the chaos began before we even departed.  My sister, Melanie, is not a light packer.  She deliberated for hours about what to bring, and when she couldn’t decide, she just packed everything she owned.  She brought it all out to the living room so our dad could pack the car.

When he saw all her clothes, Daddy shook his fists and let out a maniacal laugh-cry that can only be described as a seizure.

Seizure drawing by Robby Deans

Thus began our journey.

The trip to Florida was largely uneventful, other than the occasional fit on our Dad’s part.  Any time the radio happened to scan upon a particularly “stupid” song, or if he was cut off in traffic, or if the GPS led him into a wrong turn, or if my sister and brother and I started to laugh too loudly, he would yell and jerk the wheel, and our car would veer dangerously out of our lane. Soon it became a game to predict when his next seizure would occur.

No one expected that the next furious outburst would be from everyone but Daddy.  Our dear father is a sail-car enthusiast, and he had spoken with a guy he found on E-bay about meeting him in Florida to purchase a new mast.  What he didn’t tell us was that he hadn’t spoken to the E-bay guy in over a year and that the mast store was well off our planned route, on the other side of the state. 

On the way, we took a brief hiatus at a beautiful, natural clear-water spring called Alexander Springs; however, in the fifty-yards of swimmable water, there were about 3,000 tourists already swimming, so we continued on our quest for the E-bay mast guru.  When we finally arrived in the town where his store was likely to be, Mr. E-bay did not answer his phone.  My dad had no idea where the store might be—or if it did, in fact, exist.  You can imagine our frustration. 

This time, it was our turn to seize, and we did so loudly and collectively. 

When we finally arrived at our destination, we were extremely grateful for the night of rest we were about to receive. It was the first moment of blissful silence we had experienced since our departure from North Carolina.  Melanie and I fell asleep as soon as we hit the bed.  Sometime in the night, however, I was jolted awake by a very frightened sister.

She had apparently dreamed that she was home and I was some dangerous intruder sleeping next to her.

“Melanie, we’re in FLORIDA!” I yelled.  But her face told me she didn’t believe that just yet.  I thought she was going to hit me again and I prepared myself for another assault, but awareness crept sleepily into her eyes.  She turned over and slept serenely as if nothing had happened. 

One of the most terrifying events of our trip happened when we were scuba diving at a reef called Hen and Chickens.  It is so named because the arrangement of coral resembles a mother hen surrounded by her baby chicks.  Its name evokes a sense of maternal protection, and it seemed safe enough: the reef was shallow and beautiful, and the water was amazingly clear.  As we were diving, we were delightfully unaware of the danger that loomed above us.  A smack—nay, an army—of jellyfish had gathered near the surface, and they waited with tentacles shivering in anticipation for our exposed skin to come nearer.

We didn’t have a chance.  Panic ensued as we all tried to board the boat via a small platform next to the motor.  Melanie cut her leg on one of the platform’s bolts as the rest of us squirmed around helplessly.  It was an outright massacre and the jellyfish emerged victorious.

We sped back towards the marina in dangerously stormy conditions, trying to follow a GPS that was as lost as we were. We were cold, stung, and being pelted by rain that felt like sand.  This time, everybody had a seizure.

The rest of our time in the Keys was fun and without major disaster.  It wasn’t until we were driving back north towards home that our dad’s next outburst occurred.  Melanie and I were singing songs by the Backstreet Boys a cappella, and we got a little too excited. 

 Daddy seethed for a good hour and a half, and we wanted to stop laughing, but his seizure face was just so funny.  We took turns drawing it on the back of the map of Florida.  Robby’s illustration was the best.

On our last night on the way home, we decided to stay at the cheapest place we could find.  It was a bad decision.  At first, we were pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness of the building.  The outside was quite nice for a cheapest-you-can-get kind of place.  But when we got to the door to our building, this is what we encountered:

This creeper was blocking the door, just waiting to murder us with the rusted butcher knife he almost certainly had concealed in the back pocket of his cargo shorts.  He was talking on his cell phone.  His shirt was open, revealing a large, protruding beer gut.  His feet were bare.  Why was he standing in front of the door?  Was he staying in the hotel, or was he just hanging out there?  To whom could he be talking? An accomplice, perhaps?  Where were his shoes?  And why, in God’s name would he let his hair look like that?

The creeper stood dangerously close as we all filed into the building.  We clutched our bags and held on for dear life.  I scanned the lobby area for potential weapons to use against him.  My mom was the last one in.  As she tried to shut the door behind her, the creeper grabbed it.  The only way to get into the building was to scan your room key.  The creeper was obviously a murderer, and everyone knows that murderers don’t bother with room keys.  She pulled as hard as she could, but the creeper was too strong. 

  He made it in and reached slowly and deliberately into his cargo shorts.  We all froze, wide eyed.  Without saying a word, he pulled out his room key to show us that he did, in fact, stay in the hotel.  He followed close behind us as we found our room.  We had just gotten to the room when he dropped his key on the floor.  I braced myself, just waiting for the rusty knife to come flying out, but he simply picked up his key card and moved on.  It was the last any of us ever saw of him, except for Melanie.  That night, she dreamed the creeper had broken in and was attacking us.

That's what it's like to go on a Deans family vacation.  And even though our vacations are like an insane asylum residents’ field trip, each one of them is always more fun than the last.  After all, what would a vacation be without a seizure or two?

Mistaken Malevolence

My father and I stood, with my arm in his, underneath the blindingly bright lights of my high school football stadium.  It was homecoming, and I had been nominated to be on the court.  Hundreds of fans watched as the announcer touted my involvement in the school and community and we took our places on the thirty-yard line.  I had prepared for weeks for the occasion.  From my teenage perspective, it was the single most important day of my life.  We stood there in silence until, out of nowhere, my dad slapped me in the face. 

“What was that for?” I hissed, with a murderous glance in his direction.

“You had a mosquito,”   he said, grinning triumphantly.  It was evident that he deemed himself a valiant hero, slayer of evil and rescuer of the damsel in distress.  I smeared the remains of his ill-fated foe from my cheek and wished I could crawl under a rock and die.

My dad has an odd way of showing affection.  He’s not very touchy-feely, nor does he have any interest in vocalizing his love for others.  His love is more subtle.  One might even mistake it, as I often did, for malevolence.

I am fairly certain that my dad enjoyed embarrassing me.  An incredibly vain child, I was mortified every time my dad drove me and my siblings to the bus stop in his dilapidated old station wagon.  I begged him to get a more attractive car or just to let me walk, but he flatly refused.  He could afford a nicer vehicle, but he intentionally chose the ugliest car he could find.  I just knew that he was conspiring against me, plotting to destroy my social life at every opportunity. 

Sometimes he was sneaky about humiliating me.  I would think things were going along fine and suddenly I’d find myself blindsided by some malicious act.  When I was in computer class in eighth grade, my teacher sent home a letter requesting ten dollars for ink cartridges.  To see my dad’s reaction, you would have thought someone had threatened to take his life’s savings or, at the very least, poked him with a very sharp stick.  He paced around the kitchen, yelling and flailing his arms about, arguing about how his tax dollars are supposed to pay for such things.  My mom did her best to calm him down, and I thought the whole thing was settled.  A few minutes later, though, I was horrified to discover him on the phone with a member of the school board, yelling in high-pitched astonishment at how they could dare charge a taxpayer for school expenses. 

Sometimes his cruel acts were more a way of exerting his dominance over his household.  When I turned sixteen and got my first car, he forced me to learn how to change my car’s tires and check the oil.  “Come here and help me change your tires,” he said. What he meant was, “I’ll watch while you nearly kill yourself doing it on your own.”  I fumbled around awkwardly with the tools as I tried to follow the directions in the owner’s manual.  “You’re not doing it right,” he shouted with brows furrowed and teeth set to the side. 

“I’m doing the best I can!” I shrieked helplessly.  I continued to work at it until I was able to get the wheels back on the car, but they would almost certainly have fallen off if my dad had not snatched the lug wrench away and tightened the bolts effortlessly.  It was unclear whether his help was a real attempt to assist or merely an effort to mock my pathetic physical strength.  I assumed the latter.

In literature and cinema, villains are often simply misunderstood, rather than actual embodiments of evil.  Darth Vader, for example, is known to be on “the dark side” in the Star Wars movies, but his evil ways began from a desire to save his wife.  Dr. Frankenstein’s monster gets a bad reputation, but even despite being repulsive to his own creator, he is a benevolent, compassionate creature until he is rejected from everyone he loves.  These characters weren't born evil, they were just misjudged by those around them.  I think my dad falls into this category of accidental villain.

Even though my dad’s behavior may seem cruel at first glance, the motivation behind it has always been pure and good.  He embarrassed me to teach me humility.  He called the school board to teach me to stand up for myself.  He made me learn how to take care of my car to teach me how to be self-sufficient.   Even slapping me in front of all those people was his way of showing that he cared about me and didn’t want me to get hurt.  My dad is largely misunderstood.  All his actions—even the things I always thought were pure evil—were his way of being my hero.  Realizing this has made a huge difference in my perception of my father.  Next time he slaps me in the face, I’ll know it’s for my own good.

Granny's Gift

“You’re so smart!” my great-grandmother exclaimed as she picked up the dishes in front of me.  “You cleaned your plate!”  I smiled up at her, beaming with pride.  At five years old, I couldn’t understand why cleaning my plate had anything to do with my intelligence.  Even so, it felt wonderful to impress Granny.  She never hesitated to compliment a job well-done, especially when it came to eating food.

It wasn’t until I was a little older that I realized why she equated cleaning my plate with intellect.  It meant that I wasn’t taking what I was given for granted; I was appreciating each morsel.  She wanted me to be thankful for my blessings.

Granny’s life has not been an easy one, and it’s difficult to imagine how she can always be so grateful.  She has lived through more tragedies than anyone I know.  Her parents passed away when she was young.   The family members who adopted her were poor, and she was not able to stay in school because they needed her on the farm.  As an adult, Granny suffered enormous loss.  She has outlived four of her children, one of whom was my grandfather who died unexpectedly in 1993.   A lesser person would have renounced God after experiencing such loss, but Granny’s faith was strengthened.  It was through all her hardships that Granny learned to appreciate what she had.  She learned to cling to everything good that God granted her because goodness is so fleeting.

Granny was the start of an amazing line of women in my family.  I have always been impressed with how they are all able to juggle so much with such grace.  I suspect that it was passed down as a gift--a family heirloom.

My mother is super-mom.  In addition to having a demanding job and being active in her community, she has a husband whose favorite pastime is to sit slothfully on the couch and flip back and forth between golf and the History Channel.  She has raised (quite well, if I may say so myself) three brilliant, well-rounded children.  And still she has managed to keep her house clean, despite our best efforts as children to destroy it on a daily basis.

Her mother is even more impressive.  She has raised five children, all girls, one of whom has a mental handicap.  She worked in insurance while her husband worked for the state in road construction.  They didn’t make much money; but for what they lacked in material gain, they made up in love.  They taught my mom and her sisters the importance of family. Dinnertime was not an option in her household.  She carefully planned out meals for each week, and she worked hard to make sure they were ready on time.  My mom and her sisters ate together every night, even though moments before they had likely been in a fight to the death over something trivial.  My grandmother taught them that their bond to each other was more important than their differences.

Our family didn’t scatter as most do.  Like the stately pines in my grandmother’s front yard, which drop their seeds directly beneath their branches, the matriarchs of our line kept their loved ones close.  Each of my grandparents’ children were given plots of land near their own, so nearly all of them now live within walking distance of one another.  

My childhood memories are filled with family picnics and volleyball games at my grandparents’ pond.  There were no other kids (outside family) that lived anywhere near us, but we didn’t need them.  We had each other, and we were perfectly happy with that.

All of our close bonds we owe to my granny.  My grandparents were busy making ends meet when my mom and her sisters were young, so Granny helped raise them.  Then, when they grew up and had kids, she took care of us.  Granny loved with enormous capacity.  She showed her love through the wounds she tended, the Thanksgiving-worthy meals she would cook all year long, the countless hours she spent in prayer for us, and the beautiful quilts she sewed by hand and gave to all her “grandbabies.”

At one of our recent get-togethers, I had one of those surreal moments where I took notice of the family around me and realized how truly blessed I am to have them.  Just before prayer over the meal, my granny looked around at us all gathered in my grandmother’s kitchen.  Pride welled up in her eyes as she said, “I’m responsible for all of this.”  Yes, you are, Granny, and we are so thankful.