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The Sister Who Saved Her Family

My youngest sister, Shira Beth Brenner, was born 29 years ago today, sending rays of sunshine into a house that was in darkness.

You might think it’s hyperbole for me to say she saved the family. We were surviving, after all. But we were surviving badly, reeling from the death of my brother barely two years before.

Shira helped us smile again.

Mood music:

I was a bitter 15-year-old home sick with the flu and a Crohn’s flare up the day she arrived. She was an especially adorable baby and was a welcome distraction from everything that was going on at the time.

She’s quite a kid. If not for the big chip on my shoulder, I might have been more like her in my 20s. I’m happy with how my life turned out and believe I had to go through the dark stuff to get here. But Shira has really been an inspiration to me. She crisscrosses the globe without fear and has an easygoing way about her that’s nearly impossible to crack. I know, because I’ve tried.

I’ve always been the teasing sort of brother. I tell everyone who will listen that I remember when I could fit Shira in a beer mug. I remember once, when she was about 4 or 5, she told me to stop teasing.

“I can’t help it,” I said. “I tease you cause I love you.”

“Then don’t love me,” she shot back.

I told everyone about that exchange, and with more than a little glee.

Around the same time, I was having a lot of parties in the basement of the Revere house. The morning after, Shira would often make the rounds, stopping at the various friends who would be passed out asleep on my bed, on the couch or on the floor.

Even back then, no matter how much I drank the night before, I would always wake up early so I could sneak cigarettes without being seen.

I’d always enjoyed watching her make the rounds. My guests didn’t always enjoy it, but that was fine with me.

In more recent years, as she traveled and I got absorbed with work, marriage and parenthood, we didn’t see much of each other, save for some holidays and a couple birthday dinners.

But I’ve seen a lot more of her this year in the last three years, as my father’s ailments forced us all closer together.

At one point soon after a series of strokes, we siblings worked in shifts, helping to keep Dad out of trouble. He may have trouble seeing, swallowing and walking, but he still likes to keep everyone busy. Shira usually got the task of sleeping over on Saturday nights. She never complains and always smiles.

I’ve heard it said that a kid like her lives life on a rainbow, always in a zen-like state despite all the hard reality around her.

In Shira’s case I think that’s true. And it’s something we can all learn from. She’s not oblivious to the reality around her. She just handles it with a lot more grace than the rest of us.

You could say she’s doing for the family today what she did the day she was born — giving the family color and light at a time when we need it most.

Happy Birthday, kid.

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The Lost Generation of Revere, Mass.

An old friend from the Point of Pines, Revere, sent me a note some time ago. He came across my post on Zane Mead and another on the Bridge Rats gang. For him, they brought up more memories of kids from the neighborhood who died young.

Mood music:

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I’ll keep his name and certain details out to protect his privacy, but here’s some of what he wrote to me:

I came across your piece in your OCD Diaries about Zane Mead. It stirred up some old memories of growing up. I was actually friends with Zane until I left for the military in 1985. He was a sweet kid with a good heart most of the time. Occasionally he would be angry and self destructive. This was usually followed by an attempted suicide.

I had many talks with him about it. he never would say what was eating at him. Not sure why but I don’t think it was an issue at home. I feel like it was a personal daemon. As you stated, our life’s experiences at the time didn’t give us the ability to see the problem no less the wisdom to offer any real help. I often wonder if there was something more I could have done.

It seemed that I lost a lot of friends over the five years I was gone.

We lost your brother, Scott James, Mike McDonald. Kenny Page. It’s like we lost a generation. For years I thought I was a under achiever in my life. The more time moves on I think we may be lucky for just getting out of the city. Revere was just eating people up back then. Probably still is.

I also read you piece on bullies where you mention the Bridge Rats. I’m sincerely sorry for any part I may have caused in your distress.

Thanks for the memories. Good, Bad and Ugly. I guess they make us who we are.

Indeed they do, my friend.

I had forgotten about Mike McDonald and Kenny Page. As a teen I was so self-absorbed over my brother’s death that I didn’t realize how much loss our generation was suffering. After reading my friend’s note, I thought hard about his points about Revere eating people up. Was there some kind of curse hanging over the city in the 1980s? Were all my adolescent traumas part of that curse? Was my brother’s death and Sean Marley’s death part of it?

If you asked me that about six years ago, I’d have bought the theory straight away. Today I tend to doubt it.

It was a sad and unfortunate period, but it wasn’t a curse. We all had our share of childhood happiness in Revere in between the bad stuff. And I know now what I didn’t get back then: That we weren’t meant to live soft lives devoid of pain and struggle. These things are tossed in our path to mold us into what we can only hope to be: good people. It doesn’t always work out that way, of course. But let’s face it: Has life ever been fair?

As for the Bridge Rats, my memories are fond ones.

The last post I wrote about this gang suggested they were a band of bullies. But if you read all the way through the post, you’ll see some nostalgic warmth in my memories. As I’ve said many times, I was a punk like everyone else. I got picked on, but I did my share of picking on other people. For the most part, the Bridge Rats were a collection of pretty good kids. Some grew into happy, productive lives. Some didn’t.

That’s life.

I recently wrote about the time the Brenners nearly left Revere. There’s no question that for a time, I hated that city and would have done anything to get out.

But I stayed, and good things happened in the years that followed. A lot of good things. Precious, joyful things. I look at my kid sister Shira and the amazing, beautiful woman she is today. Would she have been that way if not for the Revere in her? Perhaps. But living there certainly didn’t damage her.

I’ve said before that Revere is where I survived and my current city of Haverhill is where I healed. That was and still is the truth.

But make no mistake about it: Revere helped make me who I am today.

And I’ll admit it: I like who I am today.

7,Revere Point of Pines

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The Spoiled Brat, the Whiney Mom and the Damage Done

Parents screw up. I certainly do. Most acknowledge a mistake when they make it. So when someone leaves a 4 year old in the car and writes a rambling essay about all the legal woe that came of it, I struggle to sympathize.

Mood music:

Kim Brooks writes about her mistake in Salon.com in the essay “The Day I Left My Son in the Car.” She writes of a harrowing morning getting her kids on a plane and making a last-minute trip to the store because her son misplaced his headphones. It was going to be a long flight, and she couldn’t board without headphones so the kid could use his iPad and keep quiet.

At the last minute, the boy announces he’s going with her. Despite her better instincts, she relents. When they reach the store, he announces he’s not leaving the car; he’s too busy with the iPad.

So she lets him stay, figuring she’ll just be a minute. She returns to the car and a safe-and-sound son five minutes later. After the flight, Brooks discovers she’s in a heap of trouble because a bystander used a cellphone to record her leaving the child and later returning. The bystander sent the recording to police.

The rest of the essay chronicles her dealings with lawyers and law enforcement and how absolutely awful it all was. If she has a lesson to share, it’s buried beneath all the whining.

I want to sympathize. She didn’t act maliciously. She made a split-second decision. A bad one, but find me a parent who hasn’t and I’ll eat a live worm.

Here’s what’s truly outrageous to me: She admits giving in to a seemingly spoiled brat:

“I don’t want to go in,” my son said as I opened the door. He was tapping animated animals on a screen, dragging them from one side to the other. “I don’t want to go in. I changed my mind.”

He glanced up at me, his eyes alight with what I’d come to recognize as a sort of pre-tantrum agitation. “No, no, no, no, no! I don’t want to go in,” he repeated, and turned back to his game.

And then I did something I’d never done before. I left him. I told him I’d be right back. I cracked the windows and child-locked the doors and double-clicked my keys so that the car alarm was set. And then I left him in the car for about five minutes.

The rest of the essay goes something like this: “He didn’t die. He wasn’t kidnapped.” Why then, was she being punished?

Here’s why, Kim:

You should have made him go in. Better yet, when he refused to get out, you should have driven back without the headphones and confiscated the iPad. Sure, he’d have screamed bloody murder. But he would have learned something.

Do us all a favor: Instead of writing essays like this, why don’t you discipline your child instead?

Thanks.

Baby crying

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Happy Birthday to a Joyful Little Soul

Three years ago today, my nephew Owen was born. We just celebrated his third birthday, but I wanted to say a little something here. Think of it as my personalized birthday card to him.

First, a video for Owen’s amusement, which also has some good advice:

Let me tell you a few things about Owen:

  • He is one of the most joyful souls I’ve ever met. He’s always laughing, excited by every new wonder. He used to cry a lot, especially when I gave him shoulder rides. But he seems to have gotten beyond that.
  • He loves American flags, plants, and Thomas and Friends.
  • He got off to a slow start with talking, but in recent months he has taken quantum leaps in the land of verbalization. Chalk that up as the first challenge of his life, which he passed with flying colors.
  • He can do a fair amount of sign language. I’m 43 years old, and the only sign language I know involves a finger.
  • He loves to pretend his cousins and their dad are trees and buildings. He especially loves knocking those objects to the ground and jumping on them. I suspect this activity is not limited to cousins and uncles, but we were the primary targets at his birthday party. We loved every second of it.
  • We adults of the family can be in the most rotten mood imaginable, but once he toddles into the room and lets out that giggle of his, all other moods brighten.

Happy birthday, you joyful little soul. Uncle Bill loves you very much.
Owen Rocks Yah

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To Duncan on His 14th Birthday

Note: I’ve often written notes to my kids on their birthday. This was originally written when Duncan turned 1o.

An open letter to my second child on his 10th birthday…

Mood Music:

At 2 a.m. on Sept. 15, 2003, I was jolted awake by your mom shoving me in the shoulder. I had just gone to bed 45 minutes earlier, and I had had a lot of wine the night before.

You weren’t expected for a few more days, so I figured I could drink and watch TV all night. I worked the night desk at The Eagle-Tribune back then, and Sunday night was MY time.

But your mom knew you were coming. And unlike your brother’s slow entry into the world two and a half years before, the labor pains you gave your mother came on fast and furious.

This was the first time you made it clear that you were going to be heard. It certainly hasn’t been the last.

Fun fact: On the ride to the hospital, as I drove over the train tracks, Mom’s water broke. The car was still brand new at that point, and that would be the first of many messes you would make of that car. We were afraid you would be delivered in that car. That’s how intense your Mom’s labor pains were. It was the first and only time Mom let me blow through red lights. Two of them, to be specific. When we reached the hospital, I accidentally slammed Mom’s finger in the car door. She barely noticed, with the labor pains you were giving her.

You entered the world by early afternoon, and you were perfect. You still are.

Sean couldn’t wait to meet you. He had a stomach bug and was throwing up all over the living room the morning after you were born. But he wasn’t going to miss meeting his new little brother. Not for the wide world.

Fun fact: We chose the name Duncan for you early on. Your mom and I each made lists of potential names and Duncan was the only name on both lists. A lot of people think we came up with that name because of Dunkin’ Donuts. But I’m a Starbucks kind of guy and people should know better. Actually, I put the name on my list because your brother was really into Thomas the Tank Engine at that point, and one of the trains was named Duncan. As you now proudly tell people, your name is Scottish for “brown warrior.” You carry the name of a leader; a chief. It’s a name of strength. The key is to put your stamp on it. With your kind heart and strong faith (how many kids your age go to the chapel AFTER Mass to pray a little more because they WANT to?) I know you’ll do great.

You have a beautiful command of language and vocabulary, and one of my great pleasures is watching you with your face buried in a book or writing stories on the computer. You gave yourself an awesome pen name in N.R. Rennerb (Brenner spelled backwards, for those of you who didn’t immediately catch on).

You’re as brave and daring as your name suggests. It was you who talked your brother into going camping with your grandparents for the first time. You also dove into Cub Scouts and basketball without hesitating. Learning to ride a bicycle was a big challenge, but you never gave up. Who would have thought the key was simply raising the seat an inch or so?

You say things that make me laugh. Like the time you walked up to the old man in the van in front of Toys R Us and scolded him for smoking. Your exact words were, “Smoking is dumb, you know. It puts holes in your lungs. You also left your back door (to the van) open.”

You’re one of the most giving, loving souls I’ve ever met. You love unconditionally, whether you’re spending time with your cousins or sharing your artistic gifts with us. I especially love the things you can do with Origami.

I love to snuggle with you on the couch as we watch “Star Wars,” “The Hobbit” or your favorite British comedy, “Keeping Up Appearances.”

I love to take you on road trips with the rest of the family, like the time we drove to Washington D.C. and got a tour of the West Wing of the White House. One of my favorite family photos is the one where we are in the press briefing room:

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As you’ve discovered by now, life can be hard. Learning to manage ADHD has been no picnic, but you’ve risen to the challenge. You study hard, take your grades to heart and got honor roll twice last year despite all the trouble you had staying focused.

ADHD hasn’t kept you back. It never will, because you won’t let it.

I can’t believe you are 10 years old. Where does the time go? I guess time flies for a Dad who is blessed with two precious boys like you and Sean.

Happy Birthday, precious boy!

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Sending Our Kids to Another School

After weeks of agonizing, debating, praying and researching, Erin and I made the painful but necessary decision to move the kids from the only school they’ve ever known to someplace new.

Mood music:

In three weeks, Sean and Duncan won’t be starting school at St. Joseph’s in Haverhill. Instead, they’re going to St. Augustine’s in Andover.

We love the St. Joe’s community and always will. But the bottom line is that both boys have extra needs the school simply isn’t equipped to provide. Sean needs more of an academic challenge in the next two years, as he sets his sights on getting into a prestigious, private high school. Duncan needs an environment better equipped to meet the needs of his IEP (Individualized Education Program). St. Joe’s has struggled to do what’s needed for a child with ADHD.

We’re excited to send them to St. Augustine’s, which has many more resources to meet those needs. But getting to that decision was hard. And telling the kids was even harder.

Like many parents, we instinctively want to shield our children from trauma. Few traumas are greater to kids than being sent to another school, particularly when they’ve been in the same place since pre-school. As expected, they were upset when we told them. There were tears and protests. We were emotionally spent by day’s end.

The next morning, we took them to the new school for admissions testing and a tour. We spent more than half the morning there, and by the time we were done, the kids were smiling. They still have their anxieties about the unknown. They are not jumping for joy, and they won’t be. But by the time we left, I think they knew this was for the best and that they were going to be just fine.

They know they’ll make new friends, and we’ve made it clear that we’ll help them stay connected to their St. Joe’s friends. Doing so won’t be difficult. We’re still parishioners of the school’s parent church, All Saints. Sean is still part of the church youth group and will see many of his friends there. And both boys are still Scouts, which will ensure another level of continuity.

In the final analysis playing it safe was unacceptable to us. Kids are going to have tough experiences in their lives and need to learn to roll with it. As parents, we have to give them our time and attention and help them stay on the right path. But we also must take occasional risks, upsetting the balance in the face of opportunity, teaching them to do the same.

And so we have.

The New School

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The Importance of Family in a Family Business

For as long as I can remember, it hung on the wall outside the front offices of the family business, right next to the timecards: a memorial plaque for the company’s founder, the man I’m named for: William J. Brenner.

I always found the plaque somewhat disconcerting to look at because there was my full name and the “In Memory of …” I’ve gotten creeped out in similar fashion whenever I’ve visited the grave.

Mood music:

He founded Brenner Paper Box Co. in Chelsea, Mass., in 1922. The original building was one of the last to burn in the Great Chelsea Fire of 1973. My grandfather had died four years earlier, in late 1969, and my father had taken over the business. After the fire, he moved it to Saugus and transformed it into a store for party supplies and, later with my stepmom, he made expanded it into a business for all special occasions: birthdays, weddings, proms, you name it. The only occasion not represented was funerals, though I’m sure the main store had something even for that in one of the aisles.

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I practically grew up there, stealing the little toys we sold for birthday party goody bags and, later, hiding behind boxes in the warehouse smoking cigarettes and listening to the Mötley Crüe cassettes I liked to load into my Walkman.

I didn’t take over the business for my father, but the building continued to be a family gathering point long after I had forged my path in the world of journalism. Now the company is closing and the building is being sold. My father had the plaque removed and gave it to me yesterday. I’ve given it a new home on my office desk.

In some ways, it’s a strange place to keep it. In other ways, it’s entirely appropriate.

The company I work for is one of the critical pillars holding up the Internet and making it run smoothly so other companies can safely do business there. I’ve long believed that the Internet played a role in the slow death of the family business. Like many mom-and-pop companies, Brenners struggled to keep customers in the stores as more people went online to buy things. But while the company couldn’t survive as it had, the family lives on and has found ways to thrive in cyberspace.

My father and stepmom had already started figuring out the business potential of the Internet some years ago, and I know from talking to them that they’ll still be busy with business ventures, and a lot of it will take place online.

Now the memorial plaque can sit here and observe how business is done in the 21st century. You could say it has a ring-side seat. I’m honored to be chosen as its keeper.

Brenner Memorial Plaque

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A Benevolent Dictatorship

My kids learned a new term this weekend: benevolent dictatorship. It’s Erin’s way of describing the way of the household. We’re the parents, we make the rules and the boys don’t get to move the goal posts around. For the sake of Erin’s sanity and my own OCD management, it’s become necessary that the children understand this.

Mood music:

Kids will be kids. Our boys leave their dirty clothes all over the floor and Lego pieces are in just about every room waiting to be stepped on. They have the uncanny ability to sweep the kitchen floor without catching a single speck of dirt and the living room furniture is always at some weird angle. They don’t do this stuff to be mean. Any parent will tell you similar stories.

But my OCD is rubbed raw these days as I adjust to a new job and the resulting changes it brings to the family dynamic. I come home and pick up all the messes they make. I can’t help myself. Seeing chaos in the form of messy rooms makes my mind chaotic, which brings on a craving for order that makes me run myself ragged.

It’s not good for me and it’s not good for Erin, who then ends up having to take care of three kids instead of two, as I revert to an angst-filled teenager in my moments of OCD overdrive.

So we had a family meeting this weekend and laid down the law. We increased their chores lists and told them their allowance will get docked every time they protest having to pull their weight. But we softened the blow by giving them both a raise. All in all, they took it well. They even seemed eager to get on with it. But we know the blowback is inevitable. They are just kids, after all.

I’ve never been particularly good at enforcing the rules. I don’t like to yell at the children, and I often choose the path of least shouting as a result. But I do it at my peril.

Lately, I’m realizing that I can’t be the passive parent anymore, because it leads to me cleaning up every bit of destruction in the kids’ wake and they don’t learn the value of being on the hook for certain responsibilities. If I let them be irresponsible, I’m doing them more of a disservice then when I have to raise my voice. And I’m learning that the yelling isn’t necessarily a disservice.

That’s become part of my education in OCD management: learning how to be a hard-ass without being an asshole.

If I can master it, I’ll be in better mental health. Erin will be in better mental health. And the kids will grow up to be men who have the discipline and thick skin to make their dreams come true.

Or so I hope.

Duncan, Sean, Bill

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Why I Skipped #ShmooCon — Again

Like last year, a lot of people have asked me why I’m not at the ShmooCon security conference in Washington D.C. After all, it is one of my favorite events.

Mood music:

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Simply put, it’s too close to the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco the week after next. Being away from home for multiple days for two weeks inside a month is simply more than my family can handle these days. Last year that realization was painful and I felt a deep sense of loss. The folks who attend ShmooCon have become cherished friends and I hate missing opportunities to see them.

But this year I don’t feel the sense of loss. For once thing, I’ll see many friends at RSA. And, this past year I’ve learned a lot about making choices, sticking with what my gut tells me to do and not being all pissy pants about it. I’ve spent a lot of time this year learning to accept that I can’t do everything I want.

Ever since I shook myself free of the fear and anxiety that came with my earlier form of OCD, I’ve had a craving for these journeys, perhaps for the simple reason that I can go through an airport and onto a plane without feeling like nails are being hammered into my intestines.

I think there’s also a high I get from going to a security show and kicking ass with my writing. Writing conference stories used to leave me harried. No more.

But that liberation has come at a cost. Specifically, since the OCD still runs hot from time to time, I have a problem with balancing my professional cravings with life at home.

I started to figure it out at the RSA conference in San Francisco a couple years ago.

Something went very wrong on that trip. Professionally everything was fine. But below the surface a personal crisis was brewing. If you look at my OCD Diary posts from that week, you could see me coming unhinged. I wrote about discomfort I felt as everyone told me what an honest guy I am because I’m not always so honest. In fact, that week a lie was eating away at my conscience.

I came home to a wife who was understandably angry with me. I was also sick as a dog, burning with fever. We worked through it, but it woke me up to the fact that I can’t do it all, 24 hours a day like I sometimes want to.

I needed to find the middle speed, which is hard as hell when you have an obsessive-compulsive mind and an addiction or four to keep in check.

I re-realized that I had to be truer to my top priorities: God, my wife and children. I can’t stop doing all the things I do. My life has evolved this way because, I think, I’m meant to give a part of myself to helping others. At the very least, it’s payment for the second chance God gave me.

But, to use corporate business-speak, I need to do it smarter, and be willing to drop it altogether for family. That’s one of the truly sick things about OCD: You know who and what you should be paying attention to, but the mental pull still drags you to less-important things that seem awfully important at the time.

That’s my blessing and my curse.

Last year, ShmooCon coincided with Duncan’s first confession, a very important event in the life of a young Christian. There was no way I would miss that. Not even for ShmooCon. Being Sean and Duncan’s dad and Erin’s husband comes first.

Next week I’ll take vacation and be with the family. Then I’ll go to RSA, kick some ass and enjoy the company of friends.

I feel pretty good about my strategy.

Meantime, I wish all my friends at ShmooCon a fantastic weekend. Bruce and Heidi Potter always put on an awesome event, and a lot of the talks are video recorded, so I know I’ll still get to lap up the content eventually.

Onward and upward.

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Dad Update, Part 2

Thanks for all your continued prayers and well wished for my father. I quick update:

Though he does have cardiovascular disease — he has for years — that wasn’t the cause of his hospitalization after all. It turns out a stomach infection was the culprit behind his lungs filling with fluid. That’s the theory they’re working with for the moment. Either way, it was infection-related and not the result of a heart attack.

I took the kids to visit him Saturday and he looked much better than he did on my birthday. His color was better and he was in good spirits. Hopefully, he’ll be out of the hospital before long.

I’ll keep y’all posted.

Thanks again.