Operation Jack

Fighting autism, one mile at a time.

Apparently, I'm For Sale

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If you’ve never been here before, you have to click here to see what Operation Jack is. In a nutshell, I’m a typical guy, father of 3, my middle child (he’s 9-1/2) is severely autistic and I wanted to find a way to make the world a better place in his honor. So in 2010, I ran 61 full marathons to raise money, plus I created the Operation Jack Marathon that year, which will have it’s fourth-annual running on December 26.

Operation Jack and the Operation Jack Marathon have grossed about $180,000, and while I’m pretty confident my best charity days are behind me, I’m still kind of clinging to this belief that I have the ability to make something happen.

If a blog falls in the woods and only three people read it, does it make a sound? We’ll see. [Read more…]

Three Things Thursday: I Have My Life Back!

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Haven’t blogged in a while … been busy selling a house and buying a house and all that kind of fun stuff. But I’m going to get back into it. Charity work is what I love to do and this is my outlet.

Three preliminary things:

1. This is what Operation Jack is, why I even have a site. Hint: It has to do with autism, which I hate, because it sucks and it ruined my kid. Yes, I said it. It’s true. I don’t accept it.
2. OPERATION JACK MARATHON. <— check it out. It’s for a great cause and it has my son’s name on it! I love it!
3. I don’t really have a third thing. But I had to say I did. It goes with the them and the alliteration and all that jazz.

1. I HAVE MY LIFE BACK!

I moved away from my family on March 15, because we relocated to Pennsylvania to get better services for our son Jack, my 9 1/2-year-old who is severely autistic. When we decided on Philly, I started looking for jobs and found one (the first night I started looking!) so I had to hit the road. I lived with one of my best friends and his family, but that’s not my family and I really missed my family.

Well, I bought a house that my wife had never seen and after going through escrow and settlement and moving and painting and all that kind of “fun” stuff, they arrived in Philly on a flight from LA at 7:01 p.m. on July 14. You KNOW I was counting down to that! Now I have the chaos that keeps me sane again. Jack’s meltdowns, Ben and Ava fighting, Tiff nagging me … it’s life as I know it. I truly feel that things are pretty challenging for us with Jack’s problems, but it’s my life and I accept it and I’m glad to have it back.

Jack at the park. Just kidding, that's our back yard. I have to push-mow that beast.
Jack at the park. Just kidding, that’s our back yard. I have to push-mow that beast.

2. I’M GOING TO TRY THIS “RUNNING” THING AGAIN

I enjoy running for a variety of reasons — partially the quiet time it gives me in the morning and also a way to compete with myself. And of course, it’s been a great way for me to fight autism (1 Peter 4:10). I’ve let life get in the way, and that’s fine, because I need to have priorities. But I like running the Boston Marathon every year. I really enjoy the course and the event. I’ve run it the past six years and I’m hoping to make it seven. But I’m not in shape and I don’t have a lot of time. I know my body pretty well — I’ve run 105 marathons so I’m getting the hang of it — and I know I have my work really cut out for me. I have a race I’m eyeing on September 8. If I can get in BQ shape by then (I need to run a sub-3:10), I’ll never fall out of shape by then. Well, that’s not true. But I’ll be pretty happy.

3. CHECK OUT THE OPERATION JACK MARATHON!

The Operation Jack Marathon and satellite runs are back for the fourth year. It’s a great event in the Los Angeles area the day after Christmas, plus we have events all over the country on December 28. The main race in California is put on to benefit Train 4 Autism and the satellite runs benefit local charities. We have events in Portland (Oregon and Maine), Kansas City, Alabama … shoot, I don’t know all the spots. I’m battling some kind of bug right now and I can’t hardly think. But if you want to do something to benefit a local autism charity in your area, EMAIL ME and let me know. I’ll give you ideas and support you in your efforts. Your participants will get shirts, medals, Starbucks and a feeling that they’ve done something good to help. And it’s pretty affordable. Drop me a line and we’ll figure something out.

OK, that’s it. 1, 2, 3. That’s all. Wait, it’s Thursday, right?

I Bought A House … That My Wife Had Never Seen!

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Swimming less than an hour after eating? Risky! Running with scissors? No way! Riding a bike with no hands? Scary! Buying a house in Pennsylvania when your wife has never in her life set foot in the state? Now THAT is living dangerously! And that’s what I did last month. Quite the roll of the dice, because we absolutely aren’t going to move for at least a decade.

I haven’t blogged much over the past few months (and real quick, if you don’t know why I blog sometimes, click HERE to see what Operation Jack is), but here’s a quick recap of the worst-year-ever that’s been our life for the past 12 months or so:

  • From about September of last year through February, we struggled (read: failed) to get our son Jack in school. He’s severely autistic and needs to be pushed to improve his chances at having any kind of quality of life when he’s an adult. We went through lawyers and all that jazz, lost time and sleep and money while watching our son regress, and gained nothing.
  • Less than a year after relocating from California to Colorado, me and my wife Tiffany decided this February (in a matter of a few hours) that we would relocate to Pennsylvania, site unseen, because it would present the best overall opportunity for the entire family.
  • Within a day after making that decision, I found an ad for a job that I would end up getting. On March 15, I left my family behind in Colorado because I started work here in the Philadelphia area on March 18.
  • On May 25, two days after the school year ended for our other two children, my wife and kids left Colorado to head to California to live with her parents and wait for me to find a place for us to live.

I’ve been away from them for 3 1/2 months, which justifiably doesn’t get me a whole lot of sympathy from military families, but it’s been difficult. We sold the house we owned in California and had a budget out here to shop with. Tiff looked online at every house that came up and it seemed like there was an issue with every listing. We had very specific needs with the house. We needed it to have a setup that would work that would give Jack play space in a safe spot of the house, plus because Jack elopes (he’s a threat to run away) and is a danger to himself, we couldn’t be too close to a house with a pool (he can’t swim) or on too busy of a street. Plus, we needed to be within a zone for one elementary school and could only afford about half the listings that came up.

So I drove by house after house after house and it seemed like nothing worked. We were getting anxious because the family needs to be out here before the start of the school year and you can’t find a house and move into it the next week. So I kept driving through neighborhoods, I went to some open houses and had our realtor take me through a few. Nothing seemed like it would work and the houses that were decent family houses were selling pretty quickly.

We had to time her trips out here well in advance and we had no idea what would be available for sale for her to see. We knew there was chance I might have to buy something without her seeing it first. She was coming the weekend of June 8, but a house that seemed like it would work well hit the market May 30. This was about the fourth time she found the house, but when I walked through it the first time (while she was in California), I thought it was great. She saw it through a video chat on her phone and loved it. I tried to tell her every negative thing about that house that I could to talk her out of it. I was very nervous about buying a house in Pennsylvania before she had ever even been to the state, but we didn’t have the luxury of waiting a week for her to get out. I was pretty sure this house was everything we wanted and I didn’t want to risk somebody else buying it.

I figured that if every single negative thing I could bring to the surface didn’t scare her away, it would be the right house. I couldn’t talk her out of it, so I had a pretty good feeling about it. But still!

We bought it and started escrow and a week later she came out on a pre-planned trip and finally saw her new hometown and new home. I was pretty nervous about her reaction. I wouldn’t buy a car without her driving it. But this was a house, something that will — like it or not — be the family home until we’re in our 50s. This isn’t like a pair of shoes that you can return to the store as long as you hang on to your receipt.

We were able to go see the house Tiff walked in and was basically giddy. She LOVED it. It was what she thought it was and she was pretty happy. I just trailed behind her and let her explore, because I had already seen it.

She stepped into the kitchen, looked out the window into the backyard and stopped dead in her tracks. Then she broke down crying with a pretty heavy set of tears. I wasn’t sure what to make of it but my heart stopped while I waited for feedback.

“I am sooooo happy right now. I feel an overwhelming sense of peace. I haven’t felt this way in years.”

Tiff's view looking out of the kitchen (there are flowers below you can't see).
Tiff’s view looking out of the kitchen (there are flowers below you can’t see).

I’ll be honest … I had to work pretty hard not to start crying myself. She’s had an extremely tough year with what we’ve gone through. She hasn’t had any happiness. As her husband, I feel like it’s my job to make sure she has a good life and her life for the prior year has been anything but good. Finally, she has something to look forward to. And to be clear, it’s not just the house. It’s way beyond the house. It’s what’s in store for Jack and the rest of our family here in Pennsylvania. The house is where home is going to be for a long, long time and she feels very comfortable at home.

Me and Tiff sitting outside the side entrance to the sunroom. Notice my sweet Kansas State t-shirt.
Me and Tiff sitting outside the side entrance to the sunroom. Notice my sweet Kansas State t-shirt.

We’ve been pretty miserable as a family for more than a year now, but finally, we can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. July 11 we close the deal. July 13 me and my two best friends are working with movers and getting things set up. July 14 at 7:05 p.m., my four favorite people in the world are landing in Philly. We’re about to get our life back. We’re about to turn Jack back in the right direction. For the first time in four months, we’ll be living together as a family again.

So grateful for that. And so grateful I didn’t screw up when I bought a house that my wife hadn’t seen![subscribe2]

 

 

Operation Jack Marathon, Here We Go Again!

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Four years ago, I wanted to do something to make the world a better place. I liked running and I was doing it pretty well, and I was heartbroken that my son Jack (now 9 1/2) is severely autistic. I wanted to do something to use my running to make the world a better place. I hated the way my son suffered and while I’m never going to throw in the towel on him, I’m realistic and know that he’s probably not going to make a huge contribution to this world on his own.

I made a decision to plan to run 60 marathons in a year (in 2010) as an attempt to raise money and awareness for Train 4 Autism. I ended up running 61 marathons along with a couple of ultra marathons and raised about $90,000 that year. I made a deal with myself that if I permanently damaged my body but made the world a better place, that was a trade-off I would accept. I felt like this was my purpose and I wanted to do it. It was worth it.

It was an amazing year. Long and exhausting and over in a heartbeat, yes. But it was amazing. I’ll never regret doing it and I’m grateful that God gave me the ability to make it happen. The last race of the year was something that was thrown together last-minute because the original race I was planning to run the final weekend of the year fell through.

So behind the urging of my friend Jake Rome, along with Train 4 Autism we put together the Operation Jack Marathon. I was hoping for 20 or so participants just to break even and have a race, but we ended up getting 151 to register in just six weeks. December 26, 2010. A day I’ll never forget. Individually, it was a lot of fun. I literally and figuratively ran myself into the ground that year and a lot of people came out to congratulate me on my efforts. It was pretty flattering, plus it made me smile to know that Jack was out there and everybody knew he was the Jack in Operation Jack! It was a really nice day for Train 4 Autism. When I saw everything out there, I just couldn’t believe that a crazy idea that came to me nearly two years earlier had come to life this way.

There was the Train 4 Autism pop-up, people wearing shirts with my son’s name on it, everybody on the course slapping me high-fives, a film crew following me around and a tv crew at the finish. It was an awesome experience, folks out there for a good time supporting a good cause. I had ZERO intention of ever putting on another race, but before I even changed out of my race clothes that day, I had a good dozen or so people ask me if we were going to put on the race again. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but with the feedback we got from surveys, I knew we had to.

We went up to about 350 participants in 2011 and then nearly 400 last year. It’s the most amazing thing to me, to see so many people out there running a race and wearing a shirt with my son Jack’s name on it. That little guy is loved and he inspires people and people pray for him and he has no clue. It’s just awesome to me and I feel so blessed that I get to be in the middle of something like this.

But then life (courtesy of autism) started kicking Jack and my wife and my other two kids and me in the face about a year ago. I feel like I’m about 90 years old right now. I haven’t been able to exercise much and I’ve lost a ton of my fitness. I’ve withdrawn so much because of what’s been going on that I’ve pretty much stopped blogging and tweeting. I’ve been living apart from my family for more than three months as we complete a relocation to Pennsylvania (because of autism) and I’ve felt very alone and isolated.

In 2010, I had a lot of people follow along and it gave me a huge boost to know how much people cared. But now, as I’ve crawled into my corner and stopped talking, nobody is talking to me. Lately, I’ve been thinking that my days of being able to do any good are long gone, that 2010 is just a fading memory and being able to run well is in the past. It’s pretty depressing when you want to do something but don’t know what to do or if you can do anything. Quitting my fight has seemed like a viable option many times in the past year.

But I got the shot of enthusiasm I needed yesterday. My good friends with Train 4 Autism met yesterday in California to talk about the race. I didn’t know what the future held and I really hoped there would be a race this year. I knew that the feedback I got from the meeting would tell me if I’d still have a way to keep fighting or if Operation Jack would be nothing but a memory. Well, we’re opening registration for the race today! We’ve hired some help to get us through this and I have no doubt it’s going to be our best event yet. I’m so excited about this now, you have no idea.

Fighting autism through my foundation drives me. It’s a huge positive for me in a life that’s filled with a lot of struggle and pain. I truly believe that I’m making things better, one small step here and there.When I woke up Tuesday morning, I didn’t know if Operation Jack would still be a reality by the time I went to bed, but it looks like it is.

I put on this race for about the purest reasons you’re going to find. This race exists to fight autism. It wouldn’t exist if my son didn’t suffer. You’re not going to find a race director more passionate about the cause or more concerned that you enjoy the race as me. Plus, where are you going to find a $60 marathon that has aid stations, custom t-shirts and 4″ medals, an expo plus a run along the beach in 60 degree temps in December? We also have satellite options, so you don’t have to be in California to support the cause and get the medal and t-shirt.

So come out and fight autism with me. Last year, I flew in Christmas night, got 90 minutes of sleep and then ran the marathon at 2:30 a.m. so I could be at the start area before the race to talk with participants and thank them. This year, I’ll be doing the same thing, although I’m coming from Philadelphia this time.Go to the site and take a look at operationjack.org/marathon or, better yet, go register at bit.ly/OJM2013! And share this on your Facebook and Twitter … keep it going, keep spreading the word, keep fighting the fight![subscribe2]

The End Of Our Failed Colorado Stay

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Finally, I feel like I can break my silence. If you’re with me on Facebook, this is no surprise to you, but if you’re only with me on Twitter or here, I’m hoping I did a good enough job keep this close to the vest.

This past weekend, I finally got my family out of Colorado. I haven’t hidden the fact that I’m in Philly now — we decided to relocate because we had no school to bring our autistic son Jack to in Colorado — but I’m out there without the family and I’ve been there for 10 weeks.

When we decided we were moving to Philly, I started looking for a job and had one in three weeks. I had to leave. My wife Tiffany stayed back in our house with the kids so that our two who are actually in school could finish out the school year, but that was the only reason they stayed. School was out last Thursday, I flew out Friday night, the movers came Saturday morning and before that truck was finished loaded, Tiff and the kids were up in the air, on a plane to California.

Moving day was bittersweet -- a harsh reminder that our Colorado dreams were taken from us. But life goes on ...
Moving day was bitersweet — a harsh reminder that our Colorado dreams were taken from us. But life goes on …

These past 10 weeks have been about the toughest 10 weeks my life. I have a fairly decent lockdown on my Facebook and was vocal about it there, but I was very concerned for their safety so I didn’t mention them being alone (or even in Colorado) on Twitter and I blogged very, very sparingly.

Jack has really struggled for the past three months. We’re still narrowing things down, but we think he has ulcers that were severely agitated by antibiotics he had for an infected gash on his heel. His behaviors were the worst we’ve ever seen. He was injuring himself, injuring my wife, injuring his siblings … he didn’t intend to hurt anybody, but he has no good way of expressing the pain he feels so he turned to hitting and punching. We finally righted that ship a week ago and he started to do much better.

I talked to Tiff frequently, via phone and text and Facebook and FaceTime and every other imaginable way to communicate. I felt so horrible for the struggles she was going through. She packed up a four-bedroom house on her own for the most part and was dealing with Jack’s serious issues. I knew I had to do what I had to do in Philly, but I still felt pretty guilty for not being in Colorado with her helping.

I flew back twice to help get ready for the move and spend time with the kids, but that takes money and to say we have finite resources is an understatement. My brother was a huge help and went out to help for about three weekends. I learned very quickly that about the only thing tougher than not seeing your kids is seeing them on FaceTime. That’s when you realize what you’re missing.

Tiff was in complete misery and it was heartbreaking to me. I love that woman more than I can convey in writing and it’s my goal in life to provide her with a good life. She was living her own personal hell and it was killing me. I just tried to keep her focusing on getting out of Colorado and down to California, where her and the kids will stay (with family). I counted down the days for her by posting silly number images every day on Facebook for her. I knew that once she got down there, she’d have help and friends and a little bit of personal time here and there. Her life will be better in Pennsylvania than California, but it will still be significantly better in California than it was in Colorado. I tried to keep her looking forward to that.

I missed a lot of things being gone — violin concerts, soccer games, helping with math homework … you name it, I missed it. I think what’s even tougher than missing things is that I’m around two great kids every day. I’m staying with one of my two best friends and his family in Philly. He has two adorable boys who run over and cling to my leg while emphatically screaming “Uncle Sam is home!” when I get home from work. It’s nice to not be lonely. But then there are times when I see them and I think, “these aren’t my kids … I want to be with MY kids!” I went to a school play for one of the kids and it was fun. But it was so depressing knowing that my own kids were so far away, having their school plays that I was missing. I have fun asking them how their day was at dinner time. But I’d rather ask Ben and Ava.

Oh, and I missed being with Tiff on our wedding anniversary last Thursday. 14 years married now, and in a way it was fitting that we weren’t together this year.

Needless to say, I can’t wait until they get out to Philly. My family is nothing but chaos and commotion. But that’s my chaos and commotion and I miss it. I live for it. I die without it. We’re going to buy a house. Finally, now that the kids are out of Colorado, Tiff can come out and we can find something. And hopefully we can have a crazy-quick escrow when we do.

Until then, I’ll be stuck in this lonely transition. I’m glad Tiff’s life is better now, and of course, the same goes for the kids. They got down to California on Saturday afternoon and she told me that Sunday was one of the best days her and Jack have had in a long, long, time. I knew it wouldn’t take long!

As I always tell Tiff, I’m the hunter, and I’m getting us what we need. I can finally rest knowing she’s in a safe nest now. Better days are coming. I can’t wait.