Author: Jason Zerbey

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Under Cover History

We’re not the kind of unschool family who doesn’t have any rules about bed time. I try to get my sons in bed at a reasonable hour whether we are home or on the road. That said, if they wish to quietly read, I will usually fall asleep before they do. One of my greatest joys is to get up in the night and see them passed out in their books with the lights still on.

Books are everywhere in our lives. It’s not just a messy obsession, it’s my intention to surround them with the resources they crave when curiosity strikes. When I straightened the sheets at the end of my younger son’s bed, I had to capture what I found.

The graphic novel editions of Moby Dick and Treasure Island are key tools in how I introduce my children to classic literature. When language is challenging, they have these images to help them through difficult vocabulary. Skyscrapers is from when I was curious about a college course that didn’t fit into the “plan” I was supposed to be following. Another failure on the part of institutionalized education that brought me to the learning lifestyle. The essential oils guide is our latest acquisition as we explore plant-based holistic health and apply our curiosity in a most valuable way. Paddington connects me to my youth visiting England and embracing those stories as part of my heritage (as well as my English, non-author, great-uncle Michael Bond). The Little Prince is an oddly wonderful library book that both sons are working through. Sniglets has been mine for ages and I don’t know why. The action hero guide has also followed me for years and is a garden for feeding their imaginative play.

These moments remind me why I have this crazy assembly of texts. They remind me of the car repair manuals, Calvin and Hobbes collections, and Joseph Campbell books I dove into as a child looking for the secrets of the adult world. They remind me why I make extra space in our lives for reading and don’t dictate when, what, nor how it is done (although library books at muddy campsites set my teeth gnashing).

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Wild Little Zerbey Adventures

I’m sure there are other single dads who pick up their sons’ friends and take them to museums. I’m sure there are other dads who invite more children along to vehicle capacity. I’m sure these dads would later get their sons to jiu-jitsu, pick up burritos, and head out to a Friday night production of Romeo and Juliet.

Some of these dads may even take a walk to spend a quiet moment with a historical landmark plaque and remember a dad who couldn’t be with his children tonight.

I’m not sure any of these dads would find a new labyrinth on that walk or a flat tire after three hours of Shakespeare.

A friend stepped up to the 11:30pm rescue call and I got my boys into bed by 12:30. They’re champs. I didn’t drag them into any of it, we were all on our seat-of-the-pants game today. I’m continually blessed by these fireballs.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Back to the Labyrinth

I think about Mary every day. It’s hard to wake up in a king size bed she bought and not look across the emptiness of it. It’s hard to collapse into that bed before sundown and remember how much easier it was to simply get dinner on the table with her help. It is hard to look at my sons and wonder why they had to lose a mother who loved them completely.

As I push ourselves to new places and heightened experiences, I get these moments in the ashes. The phoenix cycle: mental, physical, and spiritual destruction followed by a bursting forth of power. It gets easier to recognize, but more painful to experience. I wonder if it will ever stop. I wonder if I want it to stop.

The primary course of the hero’s journey is within. To enact that process through ritual in the physical world helps make sense of it. I’ve walked the Labyrinth at Delaware Art Museum dozens of times. I’ve received knowledge and comfort each time. I need those on this Summer Solstice. I’ll have my boys as well as friends of theirs who have lost their father. I’ll have a dear friend on my mind who lost her husband a year ago. I’ll have so much weight when I step to the entrance of the Labyrinth today. I’ll shed it on the path in, I’ll strip myself down to what is good and right and beautiful in Creation. I’ll sit at the center and thank God for His love and this treacherous road that has let me love myself more.

I may be there for a while today.

I’m always lighter on the way out. Maybe I’ll be on my toes. Maybe I’ll skip with my younger son. Maybe I’ll get a devilish smile and dream up some glorious quest to launch. Maybe I’m already on my way there.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Summer Magnolias

Mary was mistress of the seasons. Winter was classic: sledding, snowmen, and snowball fights. Fall found her sporting a near maniacal smile, leaf blower at the ready. Spring was planting, planting, planting… Summer may have been when she was most alive: splashing and digging with her boys at Cape Henlopen, checking out bartenders with girlfriends in Dewey Beach, tending all those spring plantings, prepping endless piles of veg for me to grill, picnicking at Brandywine River Museum of Art, and lounging at Winterthur while our sons played and made friends.

The first official signs of summer in our house come from a giant magnolia tree dominating our front yard. In late May and early June the massive blooms appear. However sparse they were, Mary loved them and would always bring one inside to further beautify our home.

The blooming seasons have expanded since her passing and there seem to be more flowers each day this year. It’s a sign of the love here, getting bigger and more colorful.

There’s another special magnolia in the Copeland Sculpture Garden at Delaware Art Museum. It too appears happier than when it was first chosen to memorialize Mary.

I used to grumble when Mary insisted on taking fresh cut flowers in water to a campsite or on a seven hour drive to a family reunion.

But when I saw our magnolia blooming just before our latest adventures, I knew I wanted one to join us. My elder son suggested the perfect receptacle and I, once again, figured out how to pack an open container with flower and water. Mary’s magnolia was vigilant in keeping our campsites fresh and beautiful over the last two weeks.

Her love is amazing.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Solo Dadding at Mountain Jam

This one was intimidating. Assumptions had crept in as I planned and envisioned our spring and summer adventures. I expected to have more support, a co-parent, to teamwork on grand excursions. I thought things might be getting easier. After 16 months of having my parental assumptions repeatedly blown up one would think that I should be used to this; or better yet, that I would give up on assumptions and the future. But I can be a slow learner.

Cap the dissolving of expectations with waves of grief and a busy unschool schedule, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of four nights of festival camping. Especially since this music festival, Mountain Jam in Bethel, New York, would feature bands that had significant ties to memories of my late wife, Mary.

Screw all that. I have slept in tents since I was an infant, attended day-long festivals since I was a preteen, survived the riots of Woodstock ’99, logged thousands of hours alone on the road with my sons, and honed my situational intuitions over those many hours. I set my back straight and climbed into our Dodge Caravan with confidence.

The road smoothed and eased before us. The trip was shorter than expected. Somewhat miraculously, an online friend spotted us as we drove by her camp site and hollered. The rain came down and the van got stuck in the mud, but, with help, we got the tent up and had ourselves set for the first night of music before sundown. We continued to find the right people at the right times. Friendly staff and volunteers, helpful young people, generous vendors, fun and engaging performers, and very special families made for easy going days and nights.

Above all, I was reminded of how good my sons are at this. They made friends, charmed adults, and carved their own unique experience out of the weekend’s offerings. For my own part, I simplified personal obligations and expectations, enjoyed as much music as I could consume, and let myself have a whole lot of fun. We stayed up late, danced and played recklessly, and took care of business when circumstances called for it.

I came away from the weekend with my shoulders back and my head high. Our story seems impossible, I saw that in many faces as I told it to new friends, but there is an immense power in mastering an impossible task. Or just in taking it on and failing, as I have many times.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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#TBT Delfest 2018

This is a story that needs to be told.

Dustbowl Revival was on our Delfest radar before a friend’s recommendation put them high on our priority list. We got to their set late due to Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band’s epic performance, but lucked out as they charged into the crowd and joined us in the cheap seats.

Isaac chanced into the front row with a tiger’s blood water ice and soon-to-be-cousin Tony’s leather hat.

The lead singer took notice and traded hats for the grand finale. Isaac’s smile conveys more than I can in words.

After that we just had to go to the meet and greet.

The band was exceptionally cordial and everyone signed Isaac’s shirt. It’s usually a sleep shirt and I have no idea why he was wearing it. Only just now do I realize the Delaware connections to Aldersgate United Methodist Church and some fine 5k sponsors, not the least of which is McCrery and Harra Funeral Home who handled Mary’s memorial arrangements with the highest care.

All of our learning is woven into what we’ve already learned. This small moment in our lives would not have been possible, or at least not as grand, if not for so many strands laid down before it.

I’m grateful for the big, crazy patchwork of a life we have. Our world expands even when it feels like it may have contracted.

Not one thread can be taken away. We can only add.

God bless,

Jason

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Bold Healing

“You know, I think this just might be the best summer eva.”

This declaration of a widower to motherless children may seem ludicrous. Maybe I have more confidence and chutzpah than I have any right to, but my ten-year-old responded with an easy, “Yeah, Dad, I agree.”

Summer’s not even here, yet we’re between road trips, on our way to a four-day music festival, and getting ready for my sons to appear in two Shakespeare productions, a jiu-jitsu tournament or two, and innumerable Delaware events.

I’ve been asked how I do all that I do with my sons. My first thought is that they’re not mine. They’re beautiful individuals who are stuck with me as their caregiver for a time. I feel a responsibility to not just prepare them for the world, but to launch them on mini quests into it. It is eternally challenging, frustrating, exhausting, and fulfilling. Their ability to navigate difficult situations rivals most adults I observe. They’ve had a crash course in unfairness, yet know they can make this world better by exploring and mastering it.

So, yeah, I think we’re looking ahead to the best summer eva.

God bless,

Jason

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“…a new phase, a new loss.”

C.S. Lewis does few brilliant things in A Grief Observed. Highest in my estimation is the use of questions with very few answers. He has a curious mind and allows it to ponder all the awful Whys, What ifs, How coulds, and Whens of his bereavement.

At no point does he try to universalize the process of grief. Even for himself, he doesn’t claim to find consistent ways of moving through the journey. When a turn in the valley appears to mimic a previous pass, he recognizes that it is in a different sequence and therefore carries fresh meaning, pain, healing, or various mixes of all. Each day is particularly exhausting, sometimes in the excitement, sometimes in the grinding, and sometimes in the slog.

It’s a book unabashedly about an individual grief and, in that way, more honest than most of the literature on the subject I’ve yet come across.

God bless,

Jason

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Reluctant Widower

I rejected “widower” almost as quickly as I came one. I met a woman (how many of my stories go like this?) who lost her husband four months after Mary died. We lunched and smiled and said “F you” to all the things that were supposed to bring us down. We weren’t widow and widower; those terms were for old folks in empty houses. We were badasses on missions from God.

I’ve learned that I must integrate the two to become a Baddass Widower. Losing Mary fundamentally changed our family. It shook me down to a place of necessities. What do my sons need? Then, a more important question: What do I need? It took me twelve months to figure out that I need to love and trust myself.

I can’t know, but I believe Mary also deprived herself of self-love. We loved each other, our marriage, our children, and the life we had built together. I lost much of that when I lost Mary, I was left with gaping holes that I thought were filled with love. In this lacking of self-love we were also missing out on a love for God. The Divine Spark is a connection with God and all of Creation. It’s individual and universal. To love the universal, one must love the individual.

My struggle lies with loving my ugliest pieces as I try to understand, master, and integrate them. It’s like my favorite poems, the ones that find beauty in stinking roadkill or redemption at the bottom of a forgotten and filthy toy bin. I have to take strength from the bully, extract medicine from the wounds, and spend a moment to polish my armor with pride before going into battle.

“Widower” is one of those ugly things. From Merriam-Webster: “a man who has lost his spouse or partner by death and usually has not remarried.” I didn’t want to define myself through someone else’s death, but that isn’t a choice I get to make. The fact is that I’m twice the man I was before death began burning down every assumption of what my life would look like. I cry more, apologize more, and love those around me a lot more. I’m physically, mentally, and spiritually more robust and balanced than ever. I’ve overcome over two decades of alcohol abuse. I’ve started to treat myself as someone in my care, whom I want to succeed.

I don’t see how I’d be here if I hadn’t become a widower. That’s part of me and I now accept it.

God bless,
Jason

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The World Isn’t Quieter

A friend shared a wedding video with me this morning. A garden wedding not unlike my own. During their vows, I heard her late husband’s voice for the first time. There are ancient assumptions that are made uneasy by this. Isn’t that gone from the earth? Aren’t they gone? Isn’t the world less complete than it was without this piece of the puzzle? Without MY piece of the puzzle.

Mary wasn’t one for speeches or quoting Victor Hugo. She just knew how to live, lead, and laugh. Her laugh is what I remember clearest. It was hers alone. The two of us around a fire after everyone else had crashed, watching our sons clowning at a party, with her sisters preparing another grand dinner, and checking out bartenders with friends, her laugh is what stands out in all those moments. It was goofy and honest and full of love.

It’s not gone. It’s recorded in videos; but more importantly, it’s molded into many hearts. A permanent fixture in the ones who knew and loved her. We are blessed to carry that special puzzle piece with us until we are reunited in Heaven and finally get to hear the real thing again.

God bless,
Jason