Nigel's 24th Birthday

 

Nigel turns 24 today

My youngest child and youngest son is Nigel Garrison Gussman. He was born November 19, 1999, in Pittsburgh where he lived until he was six weeks old when we brought him to Lancaster. He was officially adopted a year later.

Nigel lived in Lancaster until 2021 when he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he lives now. His sister Lisa Stanton lives just a few miles away. 

Nigel is named after 1992 Formula 1 World Champion Nigel Mansell and the writer Garrison Keillor, host of Prairie Home Companion and author of several books, and his Mom's favorite pop culture personality.

Like me, Nigel is a fan of Formula 1 racing. We have both followed and cheered for 7-time champion Lewis Hamilton since his rookie year in 2006.  We are both hoping he will get one more championship before he retires at the end of the 2025 season.

Nigel raced bicycles and played basketball when he was in school and coached middle school basketball recently in Minneapolis. 

We won our age groups in Sunbury

At the start in Farmersville

Nigel rode the tandem with me beginning at 5 years old

Nigel was great at cheering. He cheered for Lisa on every lap at 3 years old.

Dressed up for a dinner

Visiting the Major Dick Winters Memorial in Ephrata

Family photo almost a decade ago

Visiting his brother JacariWaddell

5 years old

With favorite stuffed animal Elmo

Happy 24th Birthday Nigel!!!

Many Dimensions of Parenting in a Podcast and in my Life

One of my sons is in a rehab program in Minneapolis. The arrangements were made by one of my daughters who has been caring for him since last August.  Before that another daughter was taking him in at her house sometimes for weeks at a time trying to help him find work and to live independently.

Having six kids, three adopted and three the other way, is complicated.  I began the journey of parenting confident that nature and nurture were about 50/50 influences in a child's life. Over the past 30 years, I came to believe children pop out about 90 percent who they are. Parents, siblings, environment and passing comets are the other 10 percent.  

In a recent episode of her podcast "Honestly," soon-to-be-first-time-parent Bari Weiss assembled a panel of authors who recently published very different books on parenting.  I did not agree with everything they said, but I did not disagree with everything they said--which is my default setting with modern parenting experts.  Here is the panel:

I especially liked Doucleff and the whole idea of a village raising kids. It's a great discussion.  Here's a link or you can subscribe to Honestly wherever you get podcasts. 

Unlike many parents I know, I went into parenting knowing I would get a lot wrong. But the compensation for the over-confidence I started with has been how much the six kids who call me Dad have helped each other (and helped me) through difficult periods of life.  

Okay. Maybe the nature/nurture split is 80/20.

Flying with No ID

 

Today my son Nigel was flying to the east coast and had an ID that said "Not for use as Federal Identification." I had not gotten him a RealID.  I had not gotten one for myself either. I was going to get one in 2020, then COVID put it out of my mind. 

I was worried he would not be able to board the plane.  It turns out it is possible to board a plane without ID. People lose their wallets, passports and other necessary ID and still fly.  

My daughter Lisa said it would be Okay.  And it was. Nigel's ID scanned and he boarded the plane.  Lisa assured me that if he had no ID he would have been questioned, but would still have boarded.  She said, "I have the kind of friends who lose their ID. Trust me."

Then I realized that in the fifty years from my first flight to basic training January 31, 1972, to now I have always had whatever was the proper ID.  Passport, drivers license, military ID.  

It's nice to know if I forget, lose, or otherwise end up without and ID, I can still get home.  Nigel and I will be visiting the DMV next week to get RealIDs, just in case. 

We Like the Hospital

Nigel and I had Thanksgiving dinner together in his room.  

Mine is in the paper plate in the foreground.  

My son Nigel has been in the hospital for the past week. He should be out in a couple of days, but he came in very sick. He has diabetes. We don't know which type yet, but the symptoms he had and all of the tests point to this diagnosis. 

Despite his diagnosis Nigel is happy in the hospital.  He likes structure and he likes to be around people, even the people who woke him every hour for four days in the Intensive Care Unit.  

In the world COVID has made, Nigel can have only one visitor for his entire hospital stay. That's me. Now that he is mostly free of IVs, we can walk together. Tomorrow we will watch the Grand Prix of Bahrain. We both cheer for Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton and he is on pole. 

Like Nigel, I never minded being in the hospital.  The several times I have stayed in the hospital for two days to two weeks, I needed to be there. Every time I have been in the hospital, I have had something (or many things) wrong that would most likely get better. And I very much wanted to get better.  

Most people who get into medicine want to get people well. I am a a good patient in that way. I come in really messed up and I leave happy and on the way to healing.  

Many well wishers hoped Nigel could get out of the hospital as soon as possible.  They were, of course, projecting. Nigel, like his Dad, is okay with being in the hospital if he needs to be.  

While Nigel's diagnosis is not clear, he came to the hospital through the emergency room, was very sick and is now very much better.