Category: Essays (Page 2 of 3)

Much More Than #24

January 28, 2020 / Tom

Kobe Bryant. A star athlete. A hero to many. A legend.

I don’t want to get into the minutia of hero worship or the frailties of a boy made rich and famous before manhood. There are many challenges we all face as we mature, but few of us have to do so under the spotlight. Even fewer of us have to do so under the intense pressure of performing for wealth and adoration. We make our mistakes and, hopefully, learn from them without much in the way of fanfare or notoriety.

Today, I just want to focus on a Dad and his daughter, a man with a girl he surely loved more than life. That is, after all, what truly matters.

I won’t pretend I can’t imagine what they went through. I believe I can. It makes me sad that such a loss had to happen in such a way. Yet, as I see grief on the faces of fans and athletes, this tragedy allows me to realize that great love exists. It exists even among the famous, the wealthy, the legends.

Because at the core of all the accolades, he was just a Dad with his little girl, a man with his legacy.

Tears

I have often felt waves of sadness roll over me as I contemplate my end. There is no fear of death in me but there is a sense of sadness. I want to experience all of life with those I love, and the thought of missing some of those things saddens me. I don’t want to miss a thing.

My children, if all goes according to plan, will carry on without me. Sometimes, as it so happened with #24, our plans as parents vanish in an instant. That’s the part I can’t, or won’t, imagine. It’s a horror needs to quickly vanish from my mind. I need to die before my children.

That is when the tears come. I think about Kobe, sitting next to his little girl on that helicopter, experiencing the horrible realization that nothing was going according to his plan. Not only was he going to die but so was his child. I can feel his impossible fear fighting his need to comfort his daughter. Waves of desperation poor over me as I sense his need for survival mixing with his desire to protect his baby girl. In my mind he fights his desire to tighten his restraints with his need to undo them just to hold her tightly.

I can hear screams mixing with “I love you”, fear mixing with love, and helplessness mixing with the desire to survive. It is quickly overwhelming.

So that’s where I stop. The intensity of pain mixed with the focus of a Dad’s need to protect his children proves too much. I can’t take it any further. It threatens the idea I have of my own plan, and leaves me realizing just how little control I have. I say a mantra, wipe the tears and shatter my shell, determined to live. I still don’t want to miss a thing and I know, deep inside, that fear does nothing but cause me to miss things.

The Legacy

I’m not a die hard basketball fan. I knew of Kobe because I grew up not far from where he grew up. I knew of him because of his childhood basketball exploits and the controversy he created locally by deciding to jump right from high school into the NBA.

It turns out he knew what he was doing and he trusted his instincts in doing it. Good man.

The death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, as well as everyone on board that helicopter, comes with a legacy outside of sports legend. It offers us a moment where great numbers of people can reflect on who they are at the same time while mourning the loss of someone they cared about. Hopefully, it also gives us all a chance to reflect on the things we haven’t lost and the opportunities we still have to embrace those things in gratitude.

Kobe Bryant’s death is not just about the loss of a legend. It’s an opportunity for parents to contemplate their own mortality and their own relationship they have with their loved ones, particularly their children. We often miss those opportunities as we swirl in our life’s distractions, but they are vital to experiencing life fully in our moment. Our moment that is so unexpectedly fleeting.

The American Character (Published Essay)

January 23, 2020 / Tom

This article was written for, and published by, ELIFE magazine’s Winter 2020 issue. You can read the article here, and peruse the magazine, here.

We are at the end of one decade and the beginning of another. The last saw an American experiment tearing itself apart. We are still embroiled in a nearly 20-year war with no real end in sight and no real understanding of the mission with little evidence that we care. We have impeached a President who is, arguably, a man completely devoid of character and honor. I could list the basis of that opinion, but I’ve been given a word limit for this essay.

This decade, which coincides with my 50^th here on earth, has given the philosopher in me a cause for concern. I grew up with a notion of what was the “American character”; one that stormed the beaches of Normandy and Okinawa, one who survived Valley Forge, one who waged a Civil War to free an entire race of people, one who stood up for human beings when they demanded equality. I grew up with images of students facing down our military on collegiate battlefields to end an unjust war. I grew up remembering when a President resigned after the honor of his office was sacrificed upon the altar of personal paranoia. I grew up feeling as if “we the People” could accomplish anything once our honor was challenged and our way of life threatened.

This decade I no longer feel that same determination of character. Instead, I’m wracked in the knowledge that a President can be elected despite the overwhelming will of the People. I’m pained in watching a man of great dishonor lead others in a nationalistic fervor that not only threatens our way of life, but our standing in the world. It seems like we live in a society more concerned with partisan ideology than honor and more about Party than integrity.

James Carville once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” I wonder if our American character has become one built solely on Wall Street whims, and if Goldman Sachs is the new rock on which our church is built. I’m not a Democrat, nor am I Republican. I’m just a man who cares about people, who strives to follow a sense of character born within, and I fear my society and my country no longer understands me as much as I no longer understand it.

“…a good moral character is the first essential in a man…It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.” – George Washington

The Love of a Parent

January 16, 2020 / Tom

I get sad sometimes.

I miss my oldest child. Memories flood my mind of her wild curly locks, her diaper swishing in hurried toddler steps. She once fit in the crux of my arm, and now she’s a woman nearly as tall as I am. She’s a powerhouse, and I’m a proud poppa even as I swelter in the wish of wanting her nearby.

I chat with my middle child on the way to school, her life a swirl of priorities I barely remember having. I marvel at her smile and her determination, but mostly I admire her courage in just being who she is. She makes no excuses, offers no apologies, and stands tall as a master of herself.

My youngest spends most of this morning trying to make us laugh. He knows success when his sister smiles. She is stingy with such things, and she makes us work for her reaction. He doesn’t care for her approval, but he does have a need to make the world a happier place. He’s been that way since the day he was born.

Time has been my best friend and my worst enemy.

This sadness is not a typical sadness. It’s a joyful sadness. I am so grateful and happy for what time has given. I’ve held three wonderful children in my arms, watched them grow from seeds to saplings, and marveled as they’ve bloomed in every season. I don’t hold onto their youth as much as I wish it was longer, that I had more time to marvel, to appreciate and to soak it all in. I want more time.

But the sunrise is fleeting and the dawn but a passing moment. I still have the day to enjoy in the appreciation of both.

So my children walk away and I smile, feeling both joy and sadness at the same time. I let them go even as I hold them close and watch them bloom even as I wish they’d stay saplings for just a little while longer. This is the love of a parent.

Warfare, Home and the Journey

January 13, 2020 / Tom

“Life is warfare and a journey far from home.” ~Marcus Aurelius.

What do you think when you read this quote? Do you think of places you’d like to visit? Where is it you’d like to go?

In Stoic circles, many suggest that this quote was advising travel to faraway lands, while others say it is evidence that the Stoics were travelers who sought adventure. I wonder though, can it have a much more meaningful connotation, one that directs us more inward in our own journey?

To me, stoicism always been an inward process that radiates outward. I see much of philosophy as inward activity generating an outward expression. Stoicism has become the inward displaying itself in the outer world and is a catalyst for who I wish to be. It is not, for me, so much a way of life as it is a way to life.

As I see it, this quote seems to have more to do with inward warfare and that journey we all undertake to varying degrees. It has less to do with traveling to exotic locations and more to do with traveling inward to places I rarely go; those places that scare me yet seem to have such influence over my life.

To understand what I mean, let me start with the second part of the sentence.

“…and a journey far from home.”

What is home to most of us? It is a comfortable place where we feel secure. We can lock our doors and close our windows if need be. We can walk around our space naked without judgement. The choices we make are ours, and we can live in a way that pleases only us. It is our safe place.

Stoics seek balance and in that balance, home is a necessary space. Yet, as with any place of comfort, staying too long at home is a waste of living. While spending time under the blankets in bed is wonderful on a cold winter’s day, it ceases to be a healthy way of living if we stay there too long. We need the discomfort of getting out of bed into the cold, and we need the outdoors to truly feel alive.

That is what I believe Marcus meant with he said, “Life is…a journey far from home.”

Many of us search for those comfortable areas within. Some of us choose to stay there, often for too long. Inwardly speaking, life is a journey far from the comfortable spaces we’ve discovered. Life becomes, instead, the journey away from our comfort zones into the relative undiscovered and uncharted territory of what makes us uncomfortable.

I will rephrase one of my original questions to reflect that notion.

“Where is it you fear to go?”

When I answered that years ago, I also decided that is where I had to go if I wanted to heal and live my fullest life. That took much in the way of the first half of Marcus’ sentence. It took warfare.

“Life is warfare…”

Many will misconstrue Marcus’ meaning when they read the first half of this quote so, invariably, they will be led to the wrong location for the second half. I don’t see life as a inevitable war outside my mind, but I could certainly have experienced the persistent warfare within my mind. Now we may battle those external forces that wish to push us outside our safe space, but that is just the outward expression of the battle being waged within. My truth has always been that when someone pokes at my internal fears the demons always rise to fight. My reaction to those who challenge me is often the reaction my mind has to it’s own journey.

Fear, as most of us know, can be one helluva ruthless bastard. It’s likely why many of us shrink from even the idea of challenging it. Especially the biggest beasts who we’ve ignored with such skill that they often need not even awake to defeat us.

Yet, if we truly wish to live, we must engage in warfare to beat back the beasts that keep us locked in our homes. We must fight them, defeat them, so that we can journey deeper into ourselves. That journey is not only the expression of life but opens up the trail toward living. When we no longer fear going outside our safe spaces we can unlock the door and journey to places beyond.

If life is warfare and a journey far from home, then living is the prize of victory. There is always a difference between life and living and that difference is usually expressed in the balance we must fine. Living can be both the swaddling under warms blankets and it can be the warfare we engage in to enter a winter’s landscape. Balance is in finding the right times for either.

The Shack (the Need for Forgiveness)

December 26, 2019 / Tom

I want to be happy, and share my gifts with the world. So, I must be willing to forgive. A lesson well learned in my time.

My love and I watched The Shack last night. It was the first time for her, the second for me.

I will be honest, the first time I saw it I was left numb, with tears streaming down my face (I don’t fear admitting that even masculine energy sheds tears). I wasn’t sure what to make of how I felt, or the fog that I was in as I rose from my seat. All I knew was that I was wiping remnants of tears from my face wondering what the fuck had just happened.

Art can, it seems, expose the deepest parts of our souls. It can expose the cracks in our armor and show us the places where water seeps from the stone.

Despite what appears to be poor ratings in Rotten Tomatoes, I highly suggest you read the book or watch the movie. I won’t spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but I will describe what wept from my heart as it unfolded.

While pain seems to be the focus of the story, it really isn’t. Forgiveness is the plot line, with pain being the catalyst for the plot to unfold. The story beautifully describes how I see the process of experience. Experience, for me, has always been a series of things known and discovered through contrasts. We know joy from sadness, light from darkness.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ~Book of Genesis

(Contrast. What good would one be without the other?)

Forgiveness can be one tough cookie, and it is meant to be. We all experience varying levels of emotional trauma in our lives. It seems to me that that more cutting that trauma is the tougher the act of forgiveness. Emotional trauma is like lifting a very heavy weight that we just never seem ready to let go of. Our proverbial limbs quiver, our bodies shake yet we just don’t drop the weight.

Forgiveness is, in its beauty, the act of dropping the weight. Usually, though, it’s not as simple as letting go. We all have a need to share the pain inflicted on us and soon those closest to us begin look like our tormentors in the Id. In the absence of the abuser in our midst, others bear the fury of our pain, of our hopelessness, and of our fear.

Until we forgive our tormentor. Then a miracle happens, and there is no more pain or fear to share. It vanishes like a twilight when the Sun rises, and evaporates like the dew at high noon.

Anger is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die.~Buddha.

During the movie, I felt my mother’s presence. I couldn’t tell if it was around me or in me, but it was there. I could feel the pain in her that caused her behaviors in my childhood.

I uttered for at least the millionth time, “I forgive you.”

I felt my loving hand touching her childhood cheek, telling her it would be alright.

I felt my young hand holding hers. “You will be fine.”

I felt my teenage heart whispering to hers, “I will forgive you one day.”

Then I felt my soul touch hers and say, “I do forgive you. I truly, honestly, with all my heart forgive you.”

More weight fell, and as it did I realized I still am carrying some childhood stones in my pocket. It’s fine, I forgive myself for carrying them.

Our abusers, it seems, can stare at us back in the mirror most times. Until we forgive, we are usually the worst abusers we will ever know in our lives. We abuse others but, mostly, we abuse ourselves.

Something strange then happened as the tears again streamed down my cheek. I thought I heard her say, “Thank you, Tommy. I am sorry, and I am waiting. You are my son, and I am proud of who you have become. I’ve taught you well, although I wish I could have taught you in another way, a way I just did not know.”

Sometimes our paths are the only ones we know, the only ones we can see, the only ones we can find. Especially when we are unable to drop the weight and forgive.

More stones fell. The sound they made as they hit the earth sounded like a symphony. Good music is created by good energy. Sometimes so are tears.

(The book the movie was based on is by Wm Paul Young. Enjoy it!)

The Roles We Play

December 12, 2019 / Tom

The jester says,

You cannot survive this. It’s too much for you to handle. You must surrender, give up, leave the field of battle. Give up the ghost, bend knee to the wicked wind, find shelter from this storm. You are nothing but a shadow meant to hide in the dark corners of the cave. The pain is too much, the risk too great, the mountain too high. Save yourself. Run and hide.

The beast says,

What life is there in running from the rain? I cannot, I must not surrender, for enslavement to the fear is a lifetime spent in death. I will set my feet, tighten my grip upon the sword of my own power and fight until my dying breath. I shall light the torch of my own ferocity and banish the shadows in this cavern. I bear the pain as a symbol of my victory, reap the reward from this refusal to surrender, and climb until the view promised my upon that summit is, at last, seen. I have saved myself in standing firm, and in pressing on beyond my mind’s limitations.

The warrior says,

I may retreat, but just to find more stable footing. I may drop my sword, but only to remove the shackles I have placed upon my soul. I may hide, but only to attack at the time of my own choosing. I may surrender, but only to free the parts of me enslaved. I am the fire that lights the torch that all shadows fear, and the storm that sets the trees to dancing in my wake. I am the hawk who sees and knows when to set upon the voices within, and the wind that carries angels up to heaven. Attack me at your peril, for if I so choose I shall crush your head under my heel and leave your carcass to the whims of the Sun.

Some moments I play the jester. Others, the beast comes out. Yet, I always try to summon the warrior, that wise part of me that always keeps me going. After all, life seems to be one successive act of survival after another, one role followed by another, multiple lessons followed by multiple tests followed by even more lessons. The essence of life seems to be in the way it flows; sometimes fast, sometimes slow but rarely stagnant for long.

One Pane of Glass

November 26, 2019 / Tom

Outside, a blizzard rages. Inside, I am comfortable, nestled nicely on a sofa beside her warm body, watching the driven flakes of snow head to meet others that have fallen before them. There is but one pane of glass that separates me from the wilds out there. Just one pane of glass between the me found in this comfortable place and the me begging to be in the place that calls me.

The slow drum and dribbles of the washing machine fills this space, a rhythmic, modern tune hummed inside while the wild, ancient song of winter whips outside. Still, in this comfort and safety my mind wonders out there, to the place where deep snow has buried the earth, where the winter winds blow hard in autumn, where the parts of me that existed well before my flesh was formed once played. I can feel the discomfort of the cold air on my skin. I can feel the challenge of moving in deep snow. I can feel the desire for survival well up inside me. It is a fire I’ve known well, built in the moments of darkness where no light was assured, kindled in those times when I was frozen to the bone.

The wild part of me wants to be challenged. The hunter in me wants to stalk his prey. The hunted in me wants to dare the hunter out from behind his tree. The beast in me wants to prove I can survive. The coward in me wants to push the beast out of his cave. Nothing brings me to life like answering the call of the wild, and nothing says home to me like the wilds themselves.

I once believed I had surrendered to fear. That was a lie told by fear itself. I had but given myself pause to regroup so that I could move forward a little bit more. Sometimes victories are not measured in miles but in inches, and sometimes victory looks like defeat. Defeat cannot, however, stain the soul that moves past the fear within him. Defeat cannot pierce the heart of the warrior who stands firm against the onslaught of the demonic hoards born inside his mind.

I fear heights, so I’ve climbed tall ladders to protect my brothers facing fire below. I’ve feared death, so life brought me to its doorstep to show me a truth. I feared sharing myself with others, so I tore off my veils and became a naked warrior ready to just be me. More fear comes, and I challenge it, often discovering what I will do and won’t do now has little to do with fear, but more with desire. While I fear skydiving, I answer less to that fear and more to the fact that I simply have little desire to jump out of an airplane.

If that desire grows, I will jump with a wild yell. That truth I learned, the one I mentioned before, was that a fear of death is a fear of life. I choose life, living as fully as I can in any moment even in those times when victory looks exactly like defeat. I will not let panes of glass get in my way, instead honoring the oath sworn on my lifebed. I will splinter any walls that get in my way, and step over the shards of windows shattered in answering the calls within.

I wonder if there are others, those intrepid souls who hear the calls of life lived before this one, and answer with all the might their hearts can muster. I wonder if there are souls out there now trudging through the deepest snow just for the challenge of it. I wonder if there are warriors out there who hear the call of hunter and prey, beast and coward, sinner and saint simultaneously and who, like me, feel at home in the forests that echo those calls. I wonder if we speak one voice, hear one song, and peer at hope through the same, lonely pane of glass.

Life is what we are given as a promise of our birth. Love helps us overcome the obstacles to life we are blessed to have fallen across our path. Truth is what binds life and love to a single, simple calling. Find life, discover love. Discover love, know truth. Love life in truth and never die again. Even as your final breath is drawn, it is the one who has discovered life who can never truly die.

You

November 13, 2019 / Tom

I see you.

I see that wonderful mix of courage and fear, and I marvel at your intricacies. I see the way you rise to the challenge of your own mind, and how you answer the call that is born deep within. I see the way you care, the way your heart spills out over the canvas of your life. I love how you leave you brushstrokes all over the place, and how I can touch the lines you’ve left on my soul. I see you, my artist, my muse, my living love.

I wonder about you.

I wonder about the Divine magic that made you, and the wonderful truth you’ve been born to be. I wonder what good I must have done to have you cross over into my life, and though I never can quite tell what it was I know I’d do it all over again just for the chance to kiss you. I think about the tears I’ve shed in utter darkness, and wonder which one watered the flower whose fragrance now fills my soul. I wonder about you, my love, and how you were born within me before I even knew I was alive.

I know you.

I know the bumps on my skin raised in the thought of you; Braille from my soul the Angels wrote with hope when sky burned with fire. I know the truth of your name whispered in the very beat of my heart, a promise of life eternal beyond the mortality of one man’s mind. I know you from lives past, those vestiges of things left behind but never quite forgotten. I know you as surely as I breathe, and I know you as a certainty gifted to a man not quite deserving of the honor.

I love you.

I love you along the clear creeks I see in solitude, and in the deep snow I fight alone to touch the depths of Nature’s breast. I love you in the songs that birth tears in my eyes, and I love you in the smiles that come in those things that only you can do. I love you in our sweet embrace that pulls us past our moments of hellish uncertainty, and in the shudders of unholy fear that come in its wake. I love you in the throes of ecstasy that beg me to love you more and in the truth that this man was made for you, and you were made for me.

It’s you I see who has showed me the way to the sweetest summit. It’s you that’s given me the pause to wonder, to find the Sun in the darkest skies and love beyond my eyes held shut. It’s you I know who’s pulled me from the whirlpool of my mind into the center of my heart. It’s you I love. You are the destination of my soul.

Love is not a fixer

November 6, 2019 / Tom

One of the hardest things you will ever have to do is tell someone you love that you have no desire to fix them. Whether it is to someone you are romantic with, or friends with, or a parent/sibling/child of, the moment you cease all responsibility for their behavior it becomes the moment you risk losing them forever.

Or at least for the time being.

People want to share their pain, their suffering, their anxiety, and their fear. More often than not, they seek out fixers, those who will take ownership of their mess and step into piles of shit with them. People also want to “fix” other people, often sacrificing their own happiness and joy in the process. We are often so conditioned that love is only real if it includes an abundant willingness to suffer, and we want to so desperately prove how much we love in our relationships that we will forget the truest source of all love — the love we have for ourselves.

During one of the most painful times in my life I was told I was a project, that I needed fixing. I realized in the moments that followed that the pain I felt was derived not only from the constant need to please others, but in the feeling that I would never succeed in that effort. That fixer became like a sponge that I felt the need to constantly fill. In that need I would create situations and instances where I was broken. After all, if I was broken wouldn’t the fixer show love in the repair? If I was Humpty Dumpty, wouldn’t she then ride up on her horse to put me back together again? If I wasn’t in need of fixing, who would I be to her?

And that “her” can be a mother, a father, a friend, a lover. It can be anyone we seek approval from when we have not learned to find that approval within ourselves.

Nothing speaks to self-loathing like constantly breaking yourself to please a fixer. Nothing paints a picture of despair when one day that fixer leaves, and not only were you helplessly broken, but you were also not good enough to be fixed. The hammer you used to break yourself suddenly becomes too heavy to hold, and the fractures you habitually created in your heart bleed real blood. You were broken, just not in the way everyone thought. You were in need of repair, but not by any person other than the one looking at you in the mirror.

That first “goddamned motherfucking shit” you utter is the first moment of real healing. That first string of profanity you growl as you try to stand again is your first moment of awakening. It’s not the thunderclap you hear from beside your Bodhi tree that shakes you out of your sleep; it’s the sound of your reconciliation as it pours from your heart The tears run down your face in a flash flood of reality, and they cleanse you of your inequity and purge you of all sense of sin.

Then, finally, you can breath with little strain. You realize that the truest sense of love comes not in fixing someone, but in not taking ownership of their repair. Your truest love emanates from your sense of self, and you have no desire to fix others or have them fix you. You can walk, run, or sit based on needs the meet your purpose and, in turn, help those around you meet theirs in your way, in your time.

When you stop being the fixer you can truly love someone with all of you, and not just the part of you carrying the toolbox. When you no longer see yourself in need of repair, you can then love yourself and others beyond that cracked area of you that once needed to be filled. When the bandages are no longer the only part that can be seen, the healthy parts of you will flourish and unite with the healthy parts of others. You will not see others in how broken they are, but in how powerful they are. You will stand on your own next to others standing on their own, and you can then walk together freely in liberation and in healthy love.

Love is not the fixer, or the broken, or the wounded. Love is the selfless act that makes nothing broken, or wounded, or in need of repair. Love is the soul that rises from the ashes and the spirit that growls in the moonless night. Love is not the hand but the sword it carries. Love is not the rope but the blade that shreds it. When all seems lost you can count on love not to heal anything, but to stand by the one healing. When the twilight comes and the Sun takes forever to rise, love is not the one pushing the Sun above the horizon but rather the one shivering next to you in the cold. Love is not the one sewing your wounds closed, but the one holding your hand as the needle pierces your flesh. Love is not the healer. Love is the one who stands by you while you heal yourself.

So when the one who loves you dearly says to you, “I cannot help you,” he is in pain right next to you. He is writhing and wincing in the agony he shares by your side. Yet, his love for you has him remain idle for he knows in his heart that real love is found in the allowing space for the strength you are realizing, the truth you are discovering and the power you are finding not in him, but in your own self. What greater love is there to offer than such a truth?

The Fragility of My Mortality

November 4, 2019 / Tom

It was bedtime and, as often the case, I went in to sit with my 13-year old son to end the day. Being a parent can be hard and sometimes the lessons we need to teach our children can be tough, but at the end of the day I like to reinforce to my kids the truth that I love them and that I am their Dad. That means that I am not just a teacher, but a role model and a man who will always do the best I can. For me, being a Dad isn’t just about teaching hard life lessons and preaching a certain kind of virtue. It is also about being vulnerable and exhibiting strength in that vulnerability.

After our talk, I ended with a “Good night, my son. I love you. You are my favorite boy in the entire Universe.” That had been my agreement with my son since he was born, and I’ve stated it so many times I could not hope to count the recitations. Despite our familiarity with that mantra, it never seems old to me. Each time I say it brings a certain amount of truth, newness and commitment into the space we share. I know soon, if he still allows me, the word boy will change to “man”. The one thing that won’t change is that he is my favorite man ever born.

The conversation used to go like this:

“I love you, bud. You are my favorite boy in the entire Universe.”

“And you are my favorite Daddy in the entire Universe.”

“I’m your only Daddy.”

“And I’m your only son.”

He has an advantage over his sisters. My middle child is currently my favorite 15-year old in the Universe, and my oldest is currently my favorite 25-year old. My son is simply my favorite boy, young man, male, whatever. He need share that favoritism with no other in his gender. He is the only one of his kind, the “man” of the house when I’m not around although his sisters have no need for a “man” of the house. They’re quite easily the strongest, most able and most independent people I know.

“Dad, give me a big hug.”

I certainly don’t say “no” to those opportunities. I assume, with some wisdom gained through the experiences I’ve had with his sisters, that those hug requests will diminish in time. This was the first year I wasn’t invited to walk with him on Halloween, that privilege being extended to his friends alone. My middle daughter didn’t even dress up this year, deciding to attend a high school haunted house with her friends instead. My oldest gave up doing those things that remind parents that they have children. Now, I have adults, and with them nothing but memories of smiles coming through princess makeup and GI Joe camouflage. I can still see each of my kids in my memory, their bags and plastic pumpkins in hand, running in dresses and scary costumes, enjoying that holiday as only kids can.

I used to be Daddy. Now, I am Dad. I used carry them on my shoulders, now I can barely lift them. They used to rely on me for so much, now I am barely tolerated (even when they rely on me). So I will never say “no” to a hug request, and I will put all my energy into that hug while it lasts.

Last night’s hug filled me with great joy, but also with great sadness. I could feel the fragility of my mortality looking over my shoulder. I could feel the moments fading. I could sense my end, although with that sense came an intense focus on the moment I was in with my favorite boy in the entire Universe.

I realized in that split second that I would not be around to see much of my son’s triumphs, or be there to help him in his tribulations. I would not be there to hug him when he needed one, or talk him through a question that entered his mind. I would not see so much of this young man’s life. I could feel a tear being born in my soul, but he would not see it. For now he would just be hugging his Dad, oblivious to the fragility of mortality that plagues us all. I could give him the gift of presence, knowing full well that one day he would fully understand the burden that mortality brings all of us who love someone deeply. The way I love my son, and my daughters, who will one day need me only to find I am gone.

That is where my “fuck” comes from. That fuck I give in this life, that fuck that says I want to be there for them, see their lives unfold, experience their joys and help shoulder their sadness. Mostly though, I know the sadness they will feel in my passing and I want to spare them from that burden. I know, however, that is a wish that will never be granted.

I woke up this morning understanding what this experience means. It means that I can’t be wasting time on the mundane, the meaningless drivel that often permeates our lives. Instead, I need to focus on the remarkable, and sharing that remarkable with those I share a love with. I need to leave a legacy of love, of words, of lessons and of memories because one day those things are all that will be left of me. I have spent a lot of my life focused on nonsense and I’ve wasted my energy on plenty of endeavors that have little meaning to those parts of me I will leave behind. I cannot build my memorial on fiction, I must build it in truth.

Perhaps that is what being a parent teaches us. Perhaps it need not be so much about “raising” our children but more about leaving them a legacy. Not a legacy of wealth and comfort, but a legacy that they can lean on when times get tough. Perhaps our role is not just to warm them, but teach them how to warm themselves and not leaving them to wander on their own, but to share with them a compass of morality, of character, and of love. That way, when they call for me and I can’t come they can still hear my voice, feel my hug, and know that I have never, ever, left them.

And I will always be their Dad.