Dear,

Right now I don’t know where to begin.  Introspective moments come and go.  Time continues to march forward and life happens.

I woke this morning and while it has always been real and relevant, I found myself loving you more than ever.  Call it the weather.  Call it the day.  Call it the month.  It’s all of those.  But more importantly, it all traces back to you.  In a moment of introspective inspiration influence by love, our life and its memories we continue to author, and the sound track of our life, I’m driven to write to you today.

And I can’t even remember when the last time I took the time to sit and write to you.  Sure there’s the Post-It notes I’ve left around.  There’s the ridiculous text messages you get from me.  But when was the last time I wrote something of meaning of substance?  Even birthday cards, mother’s day cards, anniversary cards and sound the same from me anymore.  Remember our vows?  Remember the poem about the lion framed in our bedroom?  Remember that long email so many years ago about what you deserve in a relationship?  All of those were so long ago.

Those all originated from the same root feeling even though we didn’t know it.  We were in different emotional spaces for each of those.  Sometimes timing worked for us.  And sometimes it worked against us.  But no matter what stage or emotional space we were in, my life was leading me to you.

How can I list all of the waypoints and signs that should have made us recognize it from the very beginning?  I came up from L.A. to celebrate a wedding in Washington.  What I remember most of that weekend was what your mother said to me as she leaned in the passenger window of your Jeep.  “Take care of my sweet pea.”  And without pause, I gave her my promise.  It was never more clear to me than that one late night at LAX airport just returning from Washington.  I hopped in my roommate’s truck after arriving on a very late flight.  I regurgitated the weekend, the wedding, the people, and the feeling.  He challenged me on what I’d do next.  And right then I knew I was going to make it real.  I’ve told this story a thousand times but it never gets old to me.  That moment of clarity.  That moment I knew.  That moment I knew it was you.

I can still remember the proposal and knowing I was all in.  I still am today.  I had a plan but it was tough to pull off a secret on someone who loathes secrets.  Calling your brother and father for permission were all done while you were away.  Purchasing the ring required some lying.  Working late was a trip to Torrance to visit Robbins Brothers.  Go figure that karma would come back to bite me.  I nearly lost the ring as we pulled up to Jennifer Lopez’s restaurant.  The vale opened the car door.  The ring fell out of my pocket onto the ground in the rainy dark parking lot.  Being smooth on a date while trying to find an engagement ring under your car is a challenge.  Dinner was loud and imperfect.  The proposal on Signal Hill was thwarted due to rain and fog.  I was frustrated and I have no idea if you ever knew what was happening that night.  In the rain, I told you my plan for the evening had two parts; Dinner was one.  And the other was to ask you to marry me.  And like in the movies, there was hugs kisses and tears.  I remember asking if that was a yes.

We can reflect that things weren’t always a fairytale.  We’ve dealt with more in our first 18 months than most couples deal with in a lifetime.  When we bought our first home in Signal Hill, we thought we’d be there for years.  We were making it or at least it seemed like it.  Next, we got married and you rescued a dog and gave it to me on my 30th birthday.  You thought it’d buy you time from having kid.  True story but then the bottom of our life fell out.  How do someone deal with grief and suicidal thoughts as a newlywed?  You never strayed from me when I lost myself in a crumbling mess after he died.  But it got a little tougher on us when we found out your mom’s illness was cancer.  The same woman who made me promise to take care of you was staring at the reality of never seeing a child from you.  We both knew it was time.  Life became moment to moment.  We found out you were carrying Grom #1 and it was time to find an exit strategy out of L.A.  I quit my job and moved back to Washington while you stayed behind to sell the house. pregnant and alone.  Separated after a job change, death, cancer and pregnancy.  On paper, people could have counted us out.  Eventually the house sold, you moved, we found another house.  It wasn’t built yet so we were separated again.  You at your mom’s and me at mine.  Then Grom #1 saved us as we lost your mom.

These scars are our badges for holding on and making it through.

And here we are again.  Writing the next chapter of our life.  You’re in the hospital tonight and I’m alone in this house.  There’s never been a hurdle of life which we haven’t been able to overcome together.  You helped me face all the darkness in me by shining light in the spaces in between.  That kept me believing in myself.  You gave me hope to keep moving forward even when issues were dragging me down.

Somehow we found redemption.  We found a love that’s true.

Yes. We had to grow up from being partiers and punk rockers to become a mom and dad.  Sometimes you can’t avoid being responsible.  But it’s okay to do it with a beer in your hand and your music loud.  As long as we do it together.  After all, we still know how to throw a party.

I’ve been thinking.  Some may think that’s dangerous but I’ve been thinking.  Are we at a new normal?  Shootings.  Terrorism domestically and abroad.  Murder-suicides.  Xenophobia.  Isolationism.  Geopolitical and religious unrest leading to violence.  Racial tensions.  Donald Trump.  Do I need to go on?

Today I don’t want to write about sadness.  But unfortunately, I need to touch on it to take this narrative where I want it to go.  I am saddened by the perceived new normal.

I’ve been thinking that I’m writing too much negativity; Writing about too much sadness.  Yes. I review music now and then but it seems as if I’ve lost my inspiration.  Lost my humor.  Lost my enthusiasm.  But this isn’t a woe-is-me piece.  I’ve been thinking about keeping perspective in life.  I’ve been thinking about being a parent in this ever changing reality.  A schizophrenic reality.  How do I be a parent, how do I be a dad in this reality, this new normal?

I’ve been thinking.  And with the help of an inspirational acquaintance, I’ve come to a conclusion:

It’s not going to be easy.  But it’s going to awesome.

My normal doesn’t have to be negative.  It can be laced with excitement and creativity and learning.  And I can pass those experiences on to them.  Or…..they can pass them on to me.

An example of this is their imagination.  I’m tough on my family at times.  They spend way too much time on screens and social networks.  But one night I was reminded that imagination is alive and well in my two boys.  Three words: Liquid motion toys.  You know those desk/office tchotchke items that have water and colored oil in them.  You watch the oil drip through in some sort of hypnosis while wasting away your day in a cubicle dreading working for the man.  There’s the fancy kind with various shapes, passages, channels, spinning wheels and colors that look like some sort of trinket you could buy duty-free from and in-flight magazine on an international trip.  Then there’s the not so fancy kind that you can find at the dollar store that look like they were slapped together in a Chinese sweatshop.  You know the kind that you wonder if the seals are going to break and the water-oil mixture is going to end up on your carpet.  Those are the kind my kids have.

Both have the same toy which is roughly the size of a smart phone.  And coincidentally, my kids are dying for a phone which will not happen anytime soon.  Enter children’s imagination.  In their desperation to be tethered to a cellular network and behave like a grown up, these kids carry these liquid motion toys around pretending that they’re smart phones.  These two dingbats walk around the house acting like they’re on some super-secret mission critical important phone call with each other.  The funny shit is that you can hear them.  Everywhere.  The ‘range’ of their phones isn’t that good so they need to be in the same room so they can hear each other.  If they’re in different rooms, their volume increases.  So much for privacy and security, eh, Hilary Clinton?

But it gets better.  We were sitting in our living room the other night watching the Vanilla Ice Project and his latest Palm Beach renovation.  I was flanked by the kids.  One was sitting on the easy chair to my left and the other was on the couch to my right.  Apparently, these phones are ‘smart’ devices which they can check their email and update their social network statuses.  Neither of which do these imagineers have in real life.  Oh, and these smart devices have games on them too.  Both kids sat there narrating to each other the level of Minecraft they were on.  Things like, “I just mined diamond ore in the nether” and “Watch out.  There’s a zombie villager in that building” were among the banter back and forth between the two of them.  Eventually, they were playing on the same level and discussing how one would destroy the other’s creations.  It was really no different than back in the day saying “I just rolled and 8 on my 10-side die” and “That’s plus-8 magic points now your orc village is burning in flames.”

I looked at them both and then at the ‘phones.’  Yup.  These are STILL liquid motion toys with colored oil.  Nothing had magically changed.  I’ve been thinking about how lucky I am to have the fake cell phone imaginative experience with my kids.

I’ve been thinking about some of the simpler times we spend together.

With summer here, we spend a lot of time in our backyard drinking, burning things and having fun.  The other night, we were outside on the eve of yet another business trip.  We BBQd some hotdogs to which the boys devoured with a lack of fight which is pretty rare.  After dinner, a PTA mom came over to hang out with my wife.  What this means is wine will be drank; a lot of it.  She has two kids, one of which who is in Grom #2’s class.  Her youngest one requires a little more support.  That night got me thinking about support and perspective.

To get to the point, Grom #1 and I have been playing football in the back yard.  Running plays like post and flag patterns and XY fly routes.  As the game wraps up, my wife mentions that her friend’s little guy is enamored with the game happening around him.  She asked that I sit down and play with him for a bit.  I plopped down in the cool damp grass and ‘threw’ the football to him and he handed back.  Then I threw the ball up in the air a caught it.  As I did, he laughed and pointed higher.  So I threw it higher and higher and he continued to laugh harder and harder.  The smile on his face was immeasurable.

That got me thinking about the small things we can do to bring smiles and laughs to our kids no matter how challenging things are.  Grom #2 has had special resources during his development.  As a parent, things can be difficult and you sometimes ask “Why?”  I learned early on there was no way I could fix things for him.  But I can set an example of perseverance and unconditional love and support.  Together we can make it.  Anywhere.

Everyone has their struggles.  We have our successes and failures, our wins and losses, our strengths and insecurities and our loves and broken hearts.  And eventually, they’ll have all of those too and we need to be there for them all.  Every moment with my kids is an opportunity to teach them something important about life, compassion, determination, and perseverance.  And every moment with them is an opportunity for me to learn how to listen to how they feel and what they’re going through no matter how trivial I may find it.  For them, in that moment, it is everything to share with you.

“And that’s what dads do. They pass the best of themselves to their kids.” - SG