Sugar Hill dad, son bond through unemployment, illness

Lessons from a dad on this Father’s Day:

It’s best to wrap your hand around a bluegill before extracting the fish hook from its lip.

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Mark Davis/mdavis@ajc.com

John Avery lost his job. His son, Tyler, has a series of debilitating illnesses that could prove fatal. But they are grateful this Father’s Day for the time they spend together.

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Few things are sweeter than diving in the dirt and hearing the smack! of the baseball in your glove.

And this: The measure of courage, dad and son, is how you face adversity.

John Avery, the dad, is without a job. The Sugar Hill resident has been unemployed for nearly a year after the finance company for which he’d worked 14 years slashed staff and offices.

Tyler Avery, the son, has a combination of illnesses so debilitating that any morning he could wake up blind or paralyzed. Or not wake at all. Tyler is 12.

Together, they’ve learned another lesson: Hope is a half-step behind despair; happiness is the flip side of sorrow. Unemployment and illness have brought father and son together in a link that never will break.

“When the world falls all around you, all that is left is God, your family and your friends,” John Avery said as he sat with his son a few days back. “I’ve been blessed to have all three.”

Tyler feels blessed, too. “I don’t know people who’ve got a dad as good as mine,” he said.

Dream life, then a detour

He was going to be a big-league pitcher. John Avery was a towering lefty with a 90 mph fastball when he met Kim McMurry at Oregon State University 20 years ago. He married her, signed a contract with the Braves in 1992 and headed to franchise’s single-A farm team in Pulaski, Va.

He pitched 35 innings before laying aside youthful dreams for adult obligations. Kim was pregnant. They’d need more space than the two-room efficiency that had been home for a young couple chasing a baseball dream. He didn’t look back; for Avery, baseball “was fun.” He returned to college, got a degree in finance and took a job with a national car-loan company.

The kids came pretty regularly. Michael, born 15 years ago, may equal his dad’s 6-foot-6 height. Tyler was next, born in 1996. Thomas, 8, looks like Tyler. Ashley is a 6-year-old with curious eyes.

Promotions came routinely, too. In 2005, Avery’s company made him its Southeastern finance manager, shipping the family to metro Atlanta. The Averys bought a five-bedroom house in a handsome subdivision where the homes have stone steps and terraced yards. Kim hung a passage from the Book of Proverbs in a guest bathroom: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”

Tyler was a worry, though. At 6, he’d started getting severe headaches. Some days, he was too weak to play. Some physicians dismissed it as growing pains, but his parents weren’t convinced. As Tyler grew, the pain did too. The attacks would come, and just as suddenly vanish.

While Tyler dealt with recurring bouts of illness, Avery was working full-time. He remembers jumping in his car in Raleigh at 7 p.m. one Friday for a frantic trip home. “By Greenville, I was so tired,” he said. And his boy was still hours away.

Pain and perspective

In October 2007, the pain pounced hard. Tyler, howling, went to bed, but that didn’t help. The pillow hurt his head, the sheets hurt his body. An ambulance took him to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Hospital, where he spent three weeks. There, the pain that had stalked him for years got a name: mitochondrial disorder.

With the exception of red blood cells, mitochondria are found in every cell of the human body. They produce most of the energy to sustain life and help bodies grow. If they fail, organs may falter; the heart can stop.

Physicians determined Tyler had a form of migraine headaches so severe they’d last several days. They also discovered that he had POTS — postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome — a condition in which the body doesn’t always effectively regulate the flow of blood to the brain.

In the last year, Tyler has been to the Cleveland and Mayo clinics, plus the National Institutes for Health, for further study. He’s also been hospitalized locally, Avery said, at “every children’s hospital in town.” Last year, he went “code blue” — Tyler stopped breathing on his own for 19 minutes.

Tyler shrugs off the pain and the hospital stays. “I’m just lucky not to have something worse,” he said.

The bouts come and go, varying in length and intensity. Physicians suspect the diseases never will go away; all Tyler can do is manage them the best he can. So Tyler, whenever possible, lives like any 12-year-old — running, climbing, his face turned to the sky.

A psychologist who studied him was struck by the youngster’s attitude. In spite of his diseases, the psychologist noted, Tyler was exceptionally mature and optimistic.

Where does he get those traits? The boy grinned — and slid a glance at dad.

The blessing of time

Life comes with a sole guarantee: You get but one chance to live it. How you use that time is up to you.

And so, when Avery got the news last August, he knew his life was about to change. A deepening national recession meant his employer no longer needed him. Avery, his wife and Tyler visited his Duluth office, where they boxed up the job-well-done plaques and other reminders of a working life.

His former employer gave him a “very generous” severance package, allowing his family to remain in their home, Avery said. He’s also been able to afford health insurance, and that’s been a blessing. Tyler’s medical bills, so far, are in excess of $500,000.

Avery, who is 38, is sure he’ll get another job. “I didn’t put all my faith in my work,” he said. “It was just a job.”

What he has now is time. Time to help out with the groceries. To share in the housework. When the kids yell for help, there’s an equal chance dad will answer.

There’s time for Tyler, and the call of the outdoors.

“Every chance we get,” he said, “Ty and I sneak out for some sports.”

That means lessons shared on riverbanks, where silence is virtuous in the pursuit of trout. “We have stood together for four hours, not saying a word,” said Avery.

There are lessons imparted on baseball diamonds, where fear has to ride the bench if you’re diving for grounders. Tyler likes second base. “It’s where you get a lot of [balls] hit,” he said.

They’re learned in a swimming pool, where you measure yourself against the clock and others. When you surface, you hear his voice, yelling encouragement.

They’re given when a man reaches over and tousles his son’s hair, when the kid leans against dad and says nothing. On Father’s Day, and every other day, It’s a love no greeting card can hold.