Motherlode
Go All In
Monday, December 26, 2011
It’s a reflective time of year, whether you’ve just perfected Christmas and are now staring at the detritus left behind, or if you’re simply glad the whole holiday clamour can finally subside. Now we will endure the media dead zone of lists of the year’s failures and triumphs, and be forced to consider our own. Where did you go right? Where did you go wrong?
I actually experienced my most reflective moment this past summer, in surprising circumstances. My son Ari, 17, and his buddies were playing poker at our cottage. They are typical boys; loud and raucous, taking up too much space and eating too much food. I adore it. I usually retire to my room early so they can get on with the important work of singing very loudly to a song reminding me that they have low friends in high places. They were fun; they were having fun.
A tap on my door, and they were asking me to join them. I presumed they were being polite, but my rusty poker skills were in need of an airing. Towering stacks of chips – freely distributed so everyone started with a high- roller abundance – sat in front of each of them. They gave me my own.
I soon realized for all their worldly posturing, each of them had a great propensity to go “all in”. After carefully considering the cards they held, without fail – on nearly every hand - one of them would dramatically announce he was going all in. The entire stack of chips before him was thus thrust into the pot. Others followed suit, or not.
After initially thinking this was silly or childish, I reconsidered. Friendships at this age are fluid. Some of these boys had been there before with us, some will not return. But in that moment, on that trip, they were living to the very edges. They jumped from our rock cliffs, they swam till exhausted, they sang at the top of their lungs, they told the same jokes over and over and they repeatedly went all in.
It got me thinking about my own life. I profess to not having any regrets, but that, of course, is nonsense. I have missed moments sweating details, I have spoken when I should have held my tongue, and I have been too fearful to go all in.
I have carried around a ball of sadness that I didn’t say goodbye to my parents when they died. I’d loved them dearly my entire life, and they knew it. I’d been there hours before each one died, and I know with long illnesses death is almost an administrative conclusion. I couldn’t have changed anything. And yet, I’ve somehow believed that that single moment would have crystallized my love for them.
I was wrong. Watching those boys push those poker chips around made me see this. It’s not about choosing moments; it’s about living all of them. It’s about forgoing how things look and concentrating on how they feel. It’s about recognizing that every time you act, it might be the final curtain. No Mulligans, no do-overs, no circling back to edit, tweak or censor.
I like learning from my sons. I like the strength I get from knowing I can still change, still grow. Those boys have no clue the gift they gave me when I sat at their poker table. They have no idea how their joy in the moment caused me to understand it’s not about fretting over lost goodbyes, it’s about living as if you’ll never have them.
Go all in.
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