"A key reason my life is about to take a new vector (0520.html) is that Matt is leaving home. When Melanie moved her stuff out and when Rob and Sara Ellyn moved with their Mom, the house was empty. Matt's graduation is different. For six years Matt has been part of my life every day I've been home. There are times we have struggled in our relationship. However, I know he knows how much I love him, and he knows I know how much he loves me. Sometimes it takes struggling to come to this type of knowledge. A lot of this was taken away from me with too many of you.
My relationship with Matt is different than with any of you other kids. I was putting so much energy into filling the emotional vacuum of my marriage when each of you who are my biological kids left, there was nothing left for me to give to the six of you. I had been told at church `if you loved your kid's mother, everything would turn out OK with the kids.' I believed this and put all of the emotional strength I had into attempting to fix a broken marriage. For instance, on the way back from dropping Roice off at UT Austin for his first year of college, just after we left the Chevron Station in Bastrop, Marti told me she was filing for divorce. It was the second time she had said this. The first time I had walked to Brookshire (../9835.html, ../0237.html, and ../0434.html). This time I started fighting for my marriage and my family. I failed on both accounts, as shown by the lack of involvement I had in Roice's and Ben's lives after they left home for college. Paul, I was able to be more involved with you because you were at Sam Houston State, and then you went on a mission. I vividly recall Melanie's packing up and leaving with all of her friends at the house and Bob Burnham moving into the house, as what was probably the most traumatic departure of any of you kids. And certainly the night of Melanie's High School Graduation, when the courts forced me to sign the divorce papers, was one of the worst nights of my life. There was not any emotional support left to give you kids. And then with both Sara Ellyn and Rob I made the mistake of thinking it was more important they have a good relationship with their mother than that they have me as a parent (note my insecurity). Looking back I see how I abdicated my role as a parent, leaving the two of you to follow other flawed examples. I mistakenly believed if I loved your Mom, everything would turn out good. Sometime some of you might want to read the 836 daily Lovelets, predecessors to Thoughtlets, which I wrote Marti between the 29th of February 1995 and the 12th of June 1997. I'm afraid they do show my anger and my hurt and my weaknesses and my fears. Hopefully someday you will see beyond these to see my love and how much emotional effort I was putting into trying to save my marriage and my family, will understand what happened better, and will be able to forgive me for not better meeting your needs. At least I did keep the marriage sort of together until Melanie graduated from High School, which was several years after the trauma at Bastrop.
When Heather left, after spending a summer with us following her divorce, there were the hidden R-rated movies in her suitcase, which others told me about later, as well other unsaid and secret things, things which tear down more than build up a relationship. It is hard to rebuild trust after it is shown to be misplaced. Audrey, when you left it was much better. However, the appendicitis attack on the the bus ride through Denver turned things sour and sometimes I worry they will never recover, at least not in your relationship with Mom. Rachel, you can be a beautiful jewel, and you can be a real pill. Most of the time you are a jewel, and I think we have a good relationship. Yet, Matt, it is different with you. Not that I spent more time with you, because you always said things like you really didn't like me going on campouts with you. Despite this stretching your wings for independence, it seems to me I saw more positive results in your life as a teenager from my attempts to be a good parent for you than with any of my other kids. And it was an extra special pleasure to participate in your graduation from Seminary and from High School.
Matt, it was like pulling teeth for you to finish your earning your Eagle Scout award, and you seemed to be embarrassed about graduating from Seminary. I hope that over the years these two events will come to be more meaningful to you than they seem to be now. As important as graduating from High School is, I believe the fact that you did all three things, completing your Eagle Scout Award, graduating from seminary, and graduating from High School, places you on the best possible path towards optimizing your future happiness and potential. I am very proud of your accomplishments, and how well you are doing. When you first moved here, I was very worried about how well you would do, and whether I would be able to help you. You have proven to me I am not as bad of a person as I sometimes imagine myself to be, and that you are a much better person than both you and I sometimes imagine you to be.
Matt's High School graduation occurred in the middle of a bunch of other traumas. On Monday, the 23rd of May, Alan William Thielmier was taken off of life support and died. His organs were donated to others, and he is credited with saving the lives of seven others, eight including the girl that was in the car with him Saturday night when the shooting occurred (0521.html).
In addition there was a lot going on at work. On Tuesday, May 24th, there was a meeting with GDC's corporate lawyers about working with the Chinese. It seemed to be a turning point in Dave's expectations of a Chinese contract. He became much more flexible and willing to follow the advice Jialin has been providing, after this meeting. Before I went to China, Rick Zimmerman called up and said he wanted to review the exploration prospects I put together as Dynamic Resources Corporation. We had a meeting to do this on Wednesday night, and he did not show up. I told Sam LeRoy about the meeting, and he told me about two basin floor fans with AVO anomalies he has identified on trend with Spindletop, the original big oil discovery over by Beaumont. This conversation with Rick Zimmerman is one of the reasons I have felt there is going to be a major change in the vector of my life (0520.html).
Wednesday I got a call at work telling me that Matt had wrecked Andrea's Saturn. He had gone to get his license on Monday. Wednesday was his last day of finals, and he walked home from school, washed the car, and was sent out for the first time alone with a drivers license to pick up the mail and run another errand. He looked down at his cell phone and tail ended a pickup. It cost us $3,200 to fix the Saturn and we paid $600 to fix the pickup. Andrea figured this was cheaper than having our insurance go up for the next three years. We also did not have the silver Saturn for the next three weeks. Oh well! It's something we can always remember as part of the experience of Matt's High School Graduation.
On Thursday I was taken to lunch by Brad Woods and Rod Fries of Fugero. The were recruiting me to be the Product Manager for a series of reservoir modeling, seismic inversion, petrophysical, and seismic interpretation packages they have and are building. It was an interesting lunch, and afterwards they took me to their office to meet with Eric Adams, their boss. I explained that GDC has given me a nice stock option, showed them one of the TilesTM books we have put together, and stressed I was not looking for a new job. I also told them I thought their plan was very optimistic, and that it will prove to be very hard to build another big software company serving the oil and gas exploration and production industry. Eric agreed with the fact I'm doing better at GDC than Fugero could offer me, and he was adamant he has no interest in pursuing a merger with Geokinetics nor GDC. Oh well!
Friday this e-mail came from Paul:
Friday evening after I got home we went to Matt's soccer practice. There was a baby cardinal by the crape myrtle trees in back of the basketball hoop. I went to catch it, and the mother came down and acted like her wing was broken so I would go after her rather than her baby. It reminded me of when I caught a baby kill deer (a black and white bird common in Cedar Valley), and let it go when it's mother performed the same trick. Of course I never caught the mother. This was probably when I was 10 years old. And I remember it happened right next to the old silage pit which we used as a dump. Isn't memory an amazing thing? And even more amazing was to have a close-up look at the cardinal Mom. What a beautiful orange beak, and what strong eyes. Heavenly Father's creations truly are wonderful and amazing. It is sad we get so caught up in the thick of thin things and do not take time to see and appreciate the miracles which surround us. Watching those two parents protect and teach that baby bird how to fly had a direct analog as we were taking Matt to his last soccer practice, the night before Matt's High School graduation, and a couple of weeks before he leaves the nest for good. I dropped off Matt at practice, ran a couple of errands, and came back to pick him up. He was talking to a girl, and so I just sat in the car. The next thing I knew they had disappeared up the new trail into the back of the soccer fields, and it was 15 minutes before he showed up again and got in the middle of the of a team water fight.
Following the soccer practice, Andrea and I went to the Wake for Alan William Thielmier. It was held at Kingsland Baptist Church. Early on there was talk about us helping to host the funeral at our church. I was glad that we did not have this responsibility again so soon after Jennifer Robert's tragedy (../0438.html). There were several friends from Unocal there, including George Schultz' brother Phil. There was a tall black boy there kneeling at the coffin. He probably played basketball with Alan, and it was good to see, since the murderer was also black. These photos are also at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/1307_Emerald_Green/050521_Murder_Emerald_Green. This young man was also at the funeral Saturday morning. After the funeral we had a long conversation with Jennifer Lozier outside of the church. This experience has been very hard for her.
After the Wake, Andrea and I went back to the house and we had a birthday party for Rachel (see http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/09_Rachel/050527_Rachels_21st. Then Grandma Shirts, Rachel, and Matt and I went to see the new cartoon movie `Madagascar' for Rachel's birthday. Great movie for the Grandkids. Andrea was tired and kept falling asleep. So when she watches it next time, it will be like she is seeing it for the first time.
Saturday morning started with Alan William Thielmier's funeral. There was a reference by the preacher to an angel that showed up just before he did and helped bring peace to the parents. I think this was Andrea, who had taken a meal over. It might have been Jennifer Lozier. The bottom line is there are some good women here on Emerald Green. Andrea and I went home and took Matt to his last soccer game. There are some digital photos at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/10_Matt/050528_MattSoccer. He played good, and was definitely making marks with all of the cute girls on the teams.
From here we went over to Matt's High School Graduation. This
is the first Taylor High Graduation in the new Merril Center,
which is shown in the digital image to the left. We were a little
late, and it worked out fine. We dropped Matt off at the Baptist
Church on Pin Oak Road. Then I dropped off Grandma Shirts,
Andrea, and Rachel in back of the building, and walked over to
the graduation. It was very hot. The building is nice, and
probably very expensive. I took 25 digital photos and 6 movies,
each of which can be accessed at
http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/10_Matt/050528_MattGraduation.
Melanie and Jared drove over from Vidor with Colby and
Taylor. The people sitting next to us told me that Colby looks
just like me. The Grandkids were pretty wiggly, and Jared and
Melanie ended up taking them out and watching the proceedings on
the television monitors in the hall. It was a nice ceremony.
As bad as Matt felt about wrecking the car, I know he felt very
good about graduating from High School.
He didn't want to spend any money because of the car wreck. However, I told him to stop being selfish, and that we wanted to go out to celebrate at his favorite restaurant. He choose the Nara Japanese Restaurant at Wilcrest and Westheimer. I was surprised and pleased. This is one of the first places I took everyone when they moved to Houston. And it was the place Matt wanted to go after graduating. Melanie and Jared and Colby and Taylor were able to join us. I brought Matt's chess set, which I had purchased in China, and had the waitress bring it in to him with a bowl of ice cream at the end of the meal. It was a nice celebration, and I think all of us adults who were there will always remember Matt's High School Graduation."